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Well, barf. Maybe my memory is hazy, but Vitaly did contact Andrew? And there was zero interest on their end? Anyway, a void needed filling, and it's been filled. I'm pretty sure this is run of the mill capitalism, these kinds of things happen all the time. Is it right? I don't know. By the sound of it though, everything was followed appropriately, even if some people think it's icky.
Whatever.
Trying to get module devs to cut out miRack?
Yeah I haven't read it all, but seems very unrepresentative of the facts, a shame they can't see it as a bonus to the whole community. And yeah I agree, there was a need by the market for this which wasn't being fulfilled so natural that it would happen.
I not sure what to make of it all. Definitely a double edge sword as now we have a IAA version in beta and that makes this app very useful for mobile musicians. It runs very well too.
In spite of Vitaly being quite complementary about Andrew, all of Andrew’s posted comments on this issue give me the impression that he is an insufferable arse and not above embelishing or even changing the facts to suit his narrative. Some of what he has posted could be considered libelous without proof to back up his accusations. If Vitaly is certain that his miRack release is completely legal under the terms of the open source licence, then that’s good enough, IMO.
Very interesting, thanks!
Now I'm asking myself who's telling the truth here.
In the blogpost, Andrew wrote in a section specifically dedicated to miRack:
Did @mifki really copy the graphics in the first release and changed them afterwards?
I'd like to see the modules that he copied in the current release.
And...
So Grayscale did not ask for removing the app but rather he asked for licensing fees?
I'm even more irritated now.
Another option could be to make miRack free but have the iOS-specific connectivity options be in-app purchases (which should be free for whom purchased the miRack before).
We really have no way of knowing who is 'right' over this, it's just a shame that such an awesome app has attracted such acrimony, no matter who is at fault if any fault exists.
I think it's best to enjoy MiRack, whoever is right or wrong. For me it's one of the best IOS releases in years.
The bottom line is @mifki the developer of miRack, used an earlier fork of VCV Rack code and did change the graphics of some modules in response to complaints about them. Furthermore, the VCV Rack developer estimates they’d need $20-60k to develop VCV Rack for iOS as they envision it. It seems to me there’s no way an iOS version of VCV Rack would be able to generate that amount of money. When would VCV Rack ever come to iOS?
The VCV Rack developer seems to regret they hadn’t changed the license for VCV Rack earlier and somehow believe the existence of miRack dilutes the potential market for VCV Rack on iOS. If VCV Rack should ever come to iOS, presumably all of the advantages of modules which only run on VCV Rack 1+ should attract users to it.
Getting upset with @mifki for believing in and doing the work to bring miRack to iOS using the earlier version of VCV Rack code under the license it was issued with seems like sour grapes. More significantly, he seems to be out of touch with the realities of music app economics on iOS.
I have a busy day today, I’ll respond to everything he wrote in my blog (I’m banned on the VCV forums).
No. miRack has never included any of Grayscale graphics. miRack panel graphics has never used the same e.g. fonts or colours. The only thing that was the same is the location of the controls (taken from the source code, which is not a part of the copyrighted graphics) and the fact that my panels also had light gray (but different) background. Only the fact that he probably saw them on small screenshots can explain his statement that I “took his graphics, removed VCV logo and put mine in its place”.
As for the component graphics, they are all either a “black circle with a line” type or top-down vectorised views of real hw components. All the files I’ve ever used in the app have been drawn by me. Yes, I used photos of the same hw components and I did not think he copyrighted circles with lines. I’ve changed the look completely in a matter of several days.
“Defensive and rude responses“ were related to his claims that he had special permission from Becafo and Mutable Instruments - which were not mentioned in the repos and turned out these companies did not know anything about such agreements. So yes, I responded accordingly.
No. Grayscale himself never asked for any form of payment.
Andrew wrote to me “don’t tell Wes, but I think an appropriate fee would be 12.5%”.
In his very first email, Wes ”suggested to remove the app, reconsider my approach and develop my own plugins”.
I’m not very interested in giving away % of the whole app price for one plugin graphics that I’ve never used or need, but again, Wes never asked for it.
For some reason, he thinks his graphics is something very important for the project, while what I’m trying to do all this time is to get rid of it. I never intentionally tried to create anything looking similarly - it’s absolutely not needed for the success of the app.
For what it's worth, last night I spent some time learning to patch in miRack while watching Omri Cohen's "Beginner's Patches" for VCV Rack series of tutorials on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiECaNQx239sHjQrsfOT8xQUD6whyUaxG
On SEVERAL occasions, I found myself having to pause the video playing on my computer to cross-reference what I was seeing depicted in the videos (which use the VCV "Fundamentals" modules) with what I was seeing in miRack on my iPad (the "Basics" modules.)
To keep this post short and to the point: IT REQUIRED AN EFFORT to find where each of the inputs/outputs on the modules were located. The panels have been changed considerably, in my opinion.
If "panel design" was the only issue addressed, that has been taken care of by @mikfi's updates. However, it appears that once that was addressed, a new issue was brought up. And so on.
Here's my full response - http://mifki.com/blog/re-postmortem-on-racks-gpl-relicensing/
UPDATE: Andrew deleted this response minutes after I created a new account and posted it on the VCV forums. Shows again who's willing and not willing to cooperate.
Hi everyone, Andrew Belt here. I have some free time this weekend, so I'd like to join this thread to answer anyone's questions and concerns with VCV Rack and/or miRack.
I'll first respond to a few points in the previous message.
I'm aware. My main goal is for my code to be shared as free/open-source software so that it doesn't turn into proprietary code. This is also the main goal of the GPL. A side-effect goal is to prevent a commercial fork from "keeping all that code to themselves" and profiting from that action. I don't mind other people profiting from my own code, but I do mind that they don't profit from the fact that they have exclusive source code in their fork. Make sense? The GPL is the silver bullet for this, so I'm really happy with VCV Rack's GPL license. It's good enough for me, and it's good enough for Ardour, Rosegarden, Carla, MuseScore, Hydrogen, Audacity, and many more.
I would suggest learning what "derivate work" means. I'm not here to argue legal details. You traced over the graphics to make a copy of the graphics that you were not licensed to use in for-profit products. Come on, a 10-year-old knows this is stealing.
This happened after we asked you to remove the infringing material and you refused. This is like walking into a store, stealing a sandwich, getting kicked out, and complaining that the owner didn't "cooperate" with you in letting you finish eating your sandwich first. Of course they wouldn't do that, because you've already proven you're not interested in doing the right thing in the first place. It's very simple.
I'm fully interested in continuing to create, improve, share, and collaborate with open-source projects for years to come. But I can't work with someone like Vitaly, because the same pattern will happen again and again.
I can answer questions here if anyone's interested.
@Vortico Andrew thank you for taking the time. I’ve been in love with VCV Rack since it landed. A lot of us have. We talked about it on this very forum. It has given us access to a modular environment in a way no other app has. Being iOS music producers and musicians, we obviously fantasized about having VCV on our devices.
This whole situation is very confusing and it’s hard to tell what is what. I think what most people will tell you is how stoked we are with MiRack, so most people here want MiRack to work. I don’t know what the solution is and I don’t really have any questions to be honest (I’m sure others do). I just hope (in a typical selfish consumer fashion) there’s a way to make it work. I’ve put money into VCV and MiRack. I don’t plan on stopping putting money into VCV simply because of MiRack.
Fingers crossed there is a way to move forward.
Again, all the code (that is not iOS-related and therefore from which VCV Rack can benefit) is available since 2018. What's the point talking about "keeping the code to themselves" if you're not going to incorporate it into VCV Rack?
Um.. you think so? For Fundamental panels, I created graphics completely from scratch, only using control positions from the source code (and even they were updated a bit because my code is px-based). Of course, I did not trace or use the original panel graphics.
For the component library graphics, the same. Almost all Grayscale components are the vector versions of top-down views of real hardware. I created my vector versions of the same hardware completely from scratch (apart from several knobs that are just a "black circle with a line" type - I don't think Grayscale has a copyright on that).
If Wes thinks my graphics is still a derivative, he needs to support his opinion by some other qualified and independent expert. I remind you that a work can not be called a derivative only because it looks similar to another work. As I mentioned, I'm happy to proceed with the help of such mediator.
That's not true. Wes said: "To address the infringements, more work on the component graphics should be done and the Fundamental plugins must be redesigned in such a way that the original layouts, typefaces, and color schemes bear no resemblance to the originals." So expectedly I offered him to see my new panels and tell if they're redesigned enough. He refused.
(My panels have never used the same typefaces or colours. He can not copyright a "light scheme" and demand me to make panels black just because all light panels resemble his in his opinion.)
Besides, Wes in his original email did not ask to remove his graphics or to pay fees. I don't know if you've seen that email, but I have it and obviously can prove this.
Interestingly, Andrew says he does not want to argue legal details, Wes says we're not in a courthouse and he doesn't care about Fundamental plugin license... Why is that? If you think I'm infringing copyright, surely this needs to be addressed from a legal point of view.
@mifki @Vortico this is not a good look, guys. You should really take this offline.
I'm absolutely with you on this. Many of my friends would enjoy using VCV Rack on their iPads, iPhones, Android devices, etc. and I'd love to try it myself. From a very bird's-eye level, it's just unfortunate that this is the first iOS fork available. It doesn't give the same desktop experience at all and seems like a different product entirely to me. It's undoubtedly riding off the success of VCV Rack, so I'm sad when people have the expectation that it's "VCV Rack for iOS", buy it, get disappointed that it doesn't have the features and modules they're used to, and regret they made the purchase. I think it's best for people to see miRack as "a new product for iOS", and I believe most of the miRack users on here feel that way.
I do think that someone will come along in the future (might be tomorrow or a decade, nobody knows) and create a true "VCV Rack for iOS" that meets everyone's expectations. That'd be a fantastic product I'd spend a lot of time using.
Yikes, guys. I like both mirack and vcv but all over every online message board and Facebook isn’t the best place for all this
Oh, this is going to be fun.
Unfortunately at this point it looks like we can't come to an agreement without a third-party. If anyone has better ideas other than forums, let me know.
I absolutely agree. This could be a mature private discussion, but when someone resorts to releasing private emails publicly on their blog, there's not much of a choice but to communicate on a public forum.
I'm actually here to answer your own questions/concerns, but I wanted to address some of Vitaly's final points in my first post.
Unfortunately after Wes wrote (not just to me but to Apple, too) "All you have done is taken the existing VCV Rack application code, which is free, and placed it into an iOS wrapper, and asked customers for money.", I don't think he understands what he's talking about and it can be a mature discussion.
I‘m watching hopes and dreams dashed before my eyes
I don’t see anything wrong with Andrew answering questions on here. I don’t know how I’d expect Vitaly to not respond. Is there a way to make this a dialogue? No? Are we doomed?
@Vortico : I am puzzled. You our initial post here seems to adopt language of reasonableness, but at the same time both you and Grayscale make statements about the graphics being traced or directly as if they are facts. This comes across to me as not being entirely in good faith. Rather than choose to say simply "the graphics seem derivative to me", you make a factual claim:
But you provide no evidence for this. I don't know what your intention is. I don't know all the facts of what happened behind the scenes but it seems to me that you are proposing speculation and wrapping it in the language of fact. That doesn't feel like acting in good faith.
I wish you would reconsider the accusations you are making and take up Vitaly's offer to have discussions with a neutral mediator.
He has stated his interest in resolving this amicably and has clearly made efforts to remove any ambiguity/similarity of the graphics. But, you seem uninterested in that. By declining the offers and continuing to make accusations (by stating your speculation about the graphic origin as fact).
Those parts of Grayscale's correspondence that have become public indicate shifting demands -- first indicating that the graphics should be made to look less derivative and later indicating essentially that nothing would be acceptable short of removing the modules. That does not come across as a good-faith effort to resolve a situation.
I really wish that you and Grayscale would choose to show some good faith and an interest in resolving this to the community's satisfaction. It seems to me that mirack serves a need that actually benefits VCV Rack and the VCV Rack community. By your own admission, an iOS version of VCV Rack isn't in your plans. There doesn't seem to be any claim by you that there was actually any violation of the license. You just wish that Vitaly hadn't done this and want him to throw away his considerable work.
It isn't a good look to be turning down an offer to resolve it through a neutral party.
I’ve started a new thread if anyone wants to take @Vortico up on his offer of Q&A outside of this argument. https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/35259/welcome-to-vcv-rack-developer-andrew-belt#latest
I guess I do have a question. Would this all have been avoided if Vitaly had reached out before releasing MiRack? That seems to be the real root of the problem?
I'd like to remain silent now and let you guys talk (unless I need to reply to Andrew's reply to me), so just one comment.
I believe if I had contacted them before, they'd have asked me for a licensing fee for the graphics. The thing is that I don't really want Grayscale graphics. They're accusing me of intentionally stealing it, but the graphics for one plugin and a set of knobs are so unimportant for the success of the app... They think I've done all the programming work, complied with licenses for all included plugins, and then stole graphics for just one of it -- why would I do that and endanger the project?
I've talked to several authors who created graphics for their modules - those who do not allow to use their existing graphics, told me that I'd need to make my own, but no-one said I could not use the same layouts. If I knew Grayscale's understanding of panel graphics copyright is different and extends to the module layouts, I'd have changed them right from the beginning -- this is not a problem at all -- as I did as soon as Wes requested it.
Sure. If you didn't see the first version or two of miRack (before we asked him to remove the Component Library graphics), here are some examples Vitaly sent me when I requested them. These components are a part of the "VCV Component Library" designed by Grayscale in 2017. These are not free to use commercially. (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. See https://github.com/VCVRack/Rack/blob/v1/LICENSE.md).
For reference, here's how they appear in Rack.
All components are either dead-on or very similar to the VCV Component Library graphics, so they are clearly derived works.
For an example of how these graphics are used to create a full module, and to demonstrate how large this design space is, here's Mutable Instruments Clouds.
Here's Papernoise's interpretation, for the Clouds hardware manual.
Here's Grayscale's interpretation, after Mutable Instruments provided us the hardware files.
And here's the Clouds port in miRack, clearly using the VCV Component Library graphics without his permission.
Anyway, the discussion of graphics is between Vitaly and Grayscale only. It does not involve VCV, but as demonstrated by my "cracking down" on Matthew Friedrich's Make Noise Maths infringement, these events speak volumes to me about the person's personality. As I mentioned in my "Postmortem on Rack’s GPL relicensing", it is unacceptable for someone to think it's okay to take advantage of source code, which has been graciously given to them to use, and then take even more than what is offered, especially when used in a for-profit product. This tells me that their goal is not to give back to a community, but to take as much as possible. The VCV community practically runs on the "give a bit more than you take" philosophy, whether it's a musician posting enjoyable music for everyone to listen to, a plugin developer posting updates and responding to their users' questions, or someone simply answering a user question with a link to the Rack manual, etc. In miRack's particular case, I'm seeing the opposite of this philosophy take place, so I don't believe Vitaly is a good candidate to develop a true "VCV Rack for iOS" someday.
Well, yes, they were similar, I've never denied that and myself mentioned in my posts. They were not "traced" and were not used "as-is". They were created by me, based on the same hardware components in the same "flat" style - simply because that's the only way I can do it as I'm not a designer. This version was on the App Store for two days or so - I've changed the component library graphics right after Wes/Andrew told me they were too similar - I believe this counts as willing to cooperate and resolve the issue and not as intentionally stealing.
By the way, Wes's last demand was to remove Fundamental plugin and he said he would resolve the App Store complaint in that case - there was no mention of the component graphics.
Just my opinion, i'm not saying i'm right, but it's my point of view.
From what i did read, i'm fully supporting @mifki . I don't like how @Vortico and Grayscale are acting, it stinks to me. Don't like the way how they communicate. Don't see any reasonable arguments in their posts, just a bitter taste. That's how i see it, as i said, everybody has rights o make subjective opinion based on all available information. If there are some hidden information, well, i can't incorporate them into my point of view, obviously because they are hidden
).
@mifki Once again big thanks that you made possible thing which was stated on official VCV FAQ as impossible [*] People like you are those who are moving progress forward ! Big respect to you !
I hope miRack will grow, and hope you will get support of as much other module developers as possible !
[*] just to put things in context
