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[Jonas Beckeman]

Hi,
I want to provide BASS as one of the optional audio subsystems for my open-source game devkit Endogine. Since I'm mainly targeting beginners and casual developers, the threshold can't be too high, and I think the steps that are required now to be able to use BASS in the engine are just too many:
* Download BASS.Net.exe and **install**
* Move dll to correct folder
* Download Bass.dll, unzip and move (possibly same for wma and _fx)

Many casual developers are prone to give up quickly, and all these steps would probably make them use my clearly inferior DirectX subsystem instead, since it's included from the start.

Of course, I understand I can't just include the dll:s with the source (what with licensing, different developers and all), but is there any way this process can be facilitated? I'd love to have all the dll:s in one zip - just unpack and move to the correct folder.
As for the BASS.NET MSDN help files, my developers will probably never have any use for them, as they're interacting with Bass through a common audio interface which is the same regardless of which underlying technology is used (OpenAL, DirectX or Bass)

Thanks,
Jonas Beckeman

[radio42]

What are you charging for your DevKit ?
What is your license policy?
Regarding BASS.NET we will surely find a licence policy for you - however, your developers might be commercial users making commercial games...so these developers need to aquire a commercial license I assume ;-)

[(: JOBnik! :)]

Hi

I want to provide BASS as one of the optional audio subsystems for my open-source game devkit Endogine.

Bernd, as he said, he's developing an Open Source game, I guess it's a GPL licensed?

Anyway, in BASS_FX case, you can include only the BASS_FX.DLL and the BASS_FX.H/PAS/BAS,one of them or all of them untouched! and don't forget the credits of course.

* If you want to distribute the package itself, then you must NOT change it content at all, you must distribute it as it is, i.e: bass_fx22.zip or bass_fx22-osx.zip (or any other version of BASS_FX)

[Jonas Beckeman]

Actually, it's totally license-free ATM, anyone can do anything they want with it. I'll never use GPL - it's way too limiting - but maybe Berkeley when my engine goes 1.0.

Dunno how that would work for you? If I were to include a full BASS version, I think many people would forget to license it even when they do commercial stuff.
Do you have a version with a "unregistered BASS" popup that comes up when initializing? That would work fine for my users.

BTW, would it be possible to detect if there's a debugger attached to the process? I'm thinking that you'd want to allow free usage from within Visual Studio, but when it's running as a standalone, the popup shows.

[Jonas Beckeman]

And oh, by "I'd love to have all the dll:s in one zip", I meant that it would be available for download from this site, not that I would include the .dlls in my download.

But, if the latter is possible, that would be the nicest solution.

[(: JOBnik! :)]

HI

Actually, it's totally license-free ATM, anyone can do anything they want with it. I'll never use GPL - it's way too limiting - but maybe Berkeley when my engine goes 1.0.

Dunno how that would work for you? If I were to include a full BASS version, I think many people would forget to license it even when they do commercial stuff.
Do you have a version with a "unregistered BASS" popup that comes up when initializing? That would work fine for my users.

BTW, would it be possible to detect if there's a debugger attached to the process? I'm thinking that you'd want to allow free usage from within Visual Studio, but when it's running as a standalone, the popup shows.

Well, this is good only if someone makes a commercial usage of BASS, but in other hand, there might be users using it in a freewares, so it's not a good option to include "unregistered BASS"

I guess you must include some license.txt and explain the license of your engine using with BASS

And oh, by "I'd love to have all the dll:s in one zip", I meant that it would be available for download from this site, not that I would include the .dlls in my download.

But, if the latter is possible, that would be the nicest solution.

In that case, users will have to download the full packages and get the needed files from there

[Jonas Beckeman]

> it's not a good option to include "unregistered BASS"

They could still download the "real" .dlls though. I see it as a way of making it clear that they can't distribute the .dlls however they want - which would probably happen with just a README or license.txt. If things work, people don't read the readmes... The popup would read something like:
"BASS trial version. For commercial use, see http://.... For freeware or open source projects, download files without this popup from http://..."

It's about forcing the users to note the licence, but still helping them to use BASS with as little hassle as possible.

But, a zip with all the .dlls and a readme and nothing more - **no installers** - would be fine as well.

[radio42]

So far I don't see much of a chance to create a popup or something like that in a runtime-only environment.

As for the BASS .NET API all Shareware and Commercial users must buy a license!

I don't see much of an option to simply include just the .dll, a license.txt a credit etc. into your development environment - and since your users MUST agree to the BASS .NET API license terms.
And if they build Shareware or commercial stuff with your lib - they MUST buy a BASS .NET API license as well!

If you would make your code real GPL code - I wouldn't see much of a problem, but since it is totally open and your users can do wantever they want...I see a huge risk, that all these users will think, that BASS and BASS .NET is also totally open - which it is not!

[(: JOBnik! :)]

Hi

In this case, do not include any of DLLs, but just redirect users to http://www.un4seen.com or http://www.un4seen.com/bass.html for any information and DLLs. I guess that way they will see the license of any DLL and will buy any license they should

[Jonas Beckeman]

> As for the BASS .NET API all Shareware and Commercial users must buy a license!

Yup, that's exactly what I want them to understand.


> I don't see much of an option to simply include just the .dll, a license.txt a credit etc. into your development environment

No, that would be a package that they download from this site - and in doing that, they can check the "I agree" button, right there on the site.
What is *not* an option is downloading four separate files, one of which is an installer. That's too much hassle, they simply won't do it - in that case I'll just drop the BASS plugin support, as no-one will use it...

[Jonas Beckeman]

> I'll just drop the BASS plugin support

Sorry, that wasn't intended as putting pressure on you or anything, it's just that I don't want to work too much on features that won't be used, knowing how lazy people are...

[Jonas Beckeman]

So I take it you cannot consider putting bass.dll, bass.net.dll and bass_fx.dll (plus license.txt) in a zip which is available for download from your site?

Why is it so important for you to distribute them separately? Because you'll have to update the zip whenever one of its components has changed? I don't mind if they're not all the latest version.

[radio42]

I guess Ian has to make a final decision!

[(: JOBnik! :)]

Hi

Bernd, you read my mind

[Jonas Beckeman]

OK, I'll await the verdict - thanks for listening so far!

[Ian @ un4seen]

One thing I'm unclear on is whether you only need the DLL(s) for your devkit, or the APIs too? You mention the .Net API, so I guess your kit is specifically for .Net users? Personally, I don't mind you including the BASS.DLL in your distribution, so long as you make it clear to users that they will need to license it if they use it in non-freeware productions.

[radio42]

Same for me - as long as you only ship the Bass.Net.dll and make the license issue very clear!
Anyhow there are some things to do on this side then:
a) Someone needs to create a dll package (I might do so, since the shipment might target mostly .Net users)
b) We need to create a combined license.txt (covering all versions) !
c) Ian needs to add an extra link to this site, so folks can download it

Is that what is needed?

[Jonas Beckeman]

Ian, if you read this, could you send your reply to: list at jobe .nu? Thanks!

[Jonas Beckeman]

Oops, missed the comments above, my browser didn't update properly...

> I guess your kit is specifically for .Net users?

Yes, that's right.

> so long as you make it clear

That's my main concern - I *know* that people tend to skip those texts even though they know they're required to read them.
I want to make sure your licence is unmissable. I think the easiest way is that I don't include anything with my package, but direct them to a download page where a single package (like radio42 outlines) can be downloaded.

[Jonas Beckeman]

By API, do you mean documentation? It shouldn't be necessary since they won't interact directly with Bass, but through my generic sound system wrapper.

User can choose between OpenAL, a simple DirectX player, Bass, and probably later a .NET DirectShow implementation.

I probably won't implement all Bass goodies, so some users will probably want to extend the wrapper - but they can download the docs themselves.