Leave it with me.
Discussion about licenses (commercial use of Cabbage)
Hey Rory. Just joined the forum to say ā+1ā - I would VERY gladly pay some $ for a version of Cabbage that allows me to commercially sell my VSTs.
I also see something on the JUCE site that says for $700 (or $35/month) you can get an āindieā license, allowing you to use JUCE commercially and with NO splash screen (assuming you make less than $200k in yearly revenue). Maybe this is what you were referring to in your post 16 days ago. Not sure.
In any case - please let me know how I can contribute to a fund for you to get this license!
The indie license is 700 a year, or 35 a month. There is no way this project could ever afford that! Right now, after about 8 years of work, donations have reached a staggering ā¬40! Not that Iām complaining 
Thatās a good night out!
I think the āpersonalā license, with the JUCE splash screen makes most sense. There are no on-going costs and I can produce a closed source version of JUCE without paying the JUCE license. Note that any closed source version will be the same as the open source version, apart from the fact that .csds will be hidden from the end user.
The $700 is a one time fee, not a yearly thing. Nevertheless, I get your point. Iād be happy to start there 
Ah, I thought it was yearly. If anyone produced something in the future that they realy didnāt want a splash screen for, I would happily accept $700 to remove it for them 
JUCE only costs 35 a month or 700 for a perpetual license if you are generating up to 200k USD annual revenue. You can even still use the free version of the JUCE license for up to 50k annual revenue if you have the āMade with JUCEā tag that pops up now in the bottom right.
https://shop.juce.com/get-juce
https://juce.com/juce-5-license
As far as satisfying Steinbergs extention of the GPLv3 for the VST export capability here is their license:
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// LICENSE
// Ā© 2017, Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, All Rights Reserved
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This license applies only to files referencing this license,
for other files of the Software Development Kit the respective embedded license text
is applicable. The license can be found at: http://www.steinberg.net/sdklicenses_vst3
This Software Development Kit is licensed under the terms of the Steinberg VST3 License,
or alternatively under the terms of the General Public License (GPL) Version 3.
You may use the Software Development Kit according to either of these licenses as it is
most appropriate for your project on a case-by-case basis (commercial or not).
a) Proprietary Steinberg VST3 License
The Software Development Kit may not be distributed in parts or its entirety
without prior written agreement by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
The SDK must not be used to re-engineer or manipulate any technology used
in any Steinberg or Third-party application or software module,
unless permitted by law.
Neither the name of the Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this
software without specific prior written permission.
Before publishing a software under the proprietary license, you need to obtain a copy
of the License Agreement signed by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
The Steinberg VST SDK License Agreement can be found at:
http://www.steinberg.net/en/company/developers.html
THE SDK IS PROVIDED BY STEINBERG MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES GMBH āAS ISā AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
IN NO EVENT SHALL STEINBERG MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES GMBH BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED
OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
b) General Public License (GPL) Version 3
Details of these licenses can be found at: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and also they have a forum thread with a FAQ that has some info : https://sdk.steinberg.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=286
So it looks like you would either have to contact them to satisfy their license and do closed source work OR satisfy the GPL v3
I think the main thing you may want to consider is that you may want to provide their licenseā¦ Cabbage seems to satisfy the GPL v3 version of the agreement, but if someone wants to do closed source you may want to make it clear they have to contact you. Maybe a link or a blurb of text in the dialogue for exporting to VST?
Personally if you ask me, I think GPL v3 rocks, You can still generate revenue from your work and providing source code is not likely to impact your profitability in a substantial wayā¦
The conclusion I have come to is that VSTs are rampant targets of piracy, and I am still unsure how much profit stands to be gained by marketing tools in that saturated marketplaceā¦ SO why not forgo all the extra work and licensing and just give the hackers what they want and charge a more affordable price for things so that people donāt have a reason NOT to pay itā¦
If there were cool unique little instruments for $9.99 or soā¦ available with source code, then end users wouldnāt immediately think āoh thats outside my hobbyist budget, lets search for a torrentā, they could likely pay the cost and that would be more convenient than tracking down a hack, and the pirates wouldnāt have anything to hack because there wouldnāt be copy protection and the source code is right there.
I think the reality is most electronic musicians are hobbyists anyway, and they just want fun and novel new plugins to play with but canāt afford hundreds of dollars for them because they donāt make much (if any) profit from them anyway.
This is where I see iOS APPs being a great way to go and model to learn from, with AUv3 you can release plugins and there is virtually no piracy because the ios store is integrated, and the pricing model is more reasonable for hobbyists to obtain the appsā¦ hell yeah Ill pay up to 20 dollars sometimes for a cool new music toy, but usually more like 5, and with that kind of pricing theres no reason to look for hacks cause who has a computer but canāt afford 5 dollars. At that pricing tier why would people even spend the extra effort hunting for a crack.
Just my thoughts. Unless you have some groundbreaking new idea for a proprietary DSP algorithm in which case you would be developing from scratch anyway and not likely to be reading thisā¦ there isnāt really any unique intellectual property to protect then and your only potential value in your work is in a unique combination of other peoples work, so then GPL v3 and opensource is a great route, and your value is in the conduit you provide to endusers, and in allowing other developers to āsee what you did thereā.
Just to reitterate and make it clear, its 700 one single time and you get perpetual license, or 35 a month and the revenue limit with that tier is 200k annualā¦ also the free option of having a āmade with juceā thing that comes up in the corner for a few seconds with a revenue limit of up to 50k is great option for people who are just starting out and unlikely to generate 50k in their first year(s).
This is quite an old thread. Cabbage now has a JUCE license. Check out the last 3 plugins produced by these guys. They are all built with a pro version of Cabbage which encrypts the Csound source and replaces all Cabbage branded with their own company name. If they need any new widgets specifically for the purpose of their plugins Iām happy to write them as long as they are then fed back to the community in the GPL version of Cabbage.
The bottom line that people are free to sell as many Cabbage instruments as they like. If they wish to package their plugins under their own company name, and hide the Csound code from the end user then they can buy a pro license. If people are interested in the pro version just PM me and we can chat about it.