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QT Software, under the graces of Nokia, has released the superb QT cross-platform toolkit under the LGPL.

This. is. HUGE.

For the libre software purist, this still benefits you, if indirectly.  Companies that make changes to the toolkit must still submit patches.  More influential, GPL incompatible software may now readily use QT for free.  This will likely foster more QT centric developers, boost adoption of the underlying stack (Linux, etc), and lower the barrier for vendors to release cross-platform tools.

From a Nokia business perspective, it makes perfect sense and makes the whole thing that much more beautiful.  “QT Everywhere” is really a possibility now.  And, it’s beneficial to Nokia as well as the ecosystem they are enriching.  The more QT developers, the bigger the talent pool for Nokia software.  The more contributors, the better the toolkit.  Win.  A small company like Trolltech could not afford to do this, but to a big dog like Nokia, the revenue from commercial licensing is insignificant and unimportant compared to device sales.

I know the company I work for, Analog Rails, will be able to take advantage of the license switch.  Being previous commercial QT customers, it was expensive to juggle around machines to maintain compliance.  For a companies like VMWare that deploy cross-platform software and maintain their own cross-platform extensions, this surely must be compelling.  I say, the more the merrier!

What a great day for free software, computing, and life in general :-) .

Ars Technica has outstanding coverage of the news: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090114-nokia-qt-lgpl-switch-huge-win-for-cross-platform-development.html

One of my favorite blogs, Create Digital Music, ran a piece on NIN doing a rehearsal for Echoplex.

It’s neat to see the Lemur, a touch screen MIDI controller, used live by the drummer.  Overall the song structure is relatively simple but it is amazing how well they keep together.  Notice the dude manning their monitoring setup full time and the in ear monitors 8-)?

I need to get a hold of an old touchscreen PC and see if I can convert it into a Linux MIDI controller with Open Sound Control and maybe some custom Java.  It’s sad because I had something perfect for the task a few years ago, an IBM Industrial panel PC, basically a laptop in a bulletproof magnesium case with touchscreen :-(.

If you are interested in this sort of thing, click through, otherwise enjoy the tune below.

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/12/17/how-they-work-nin-echoplex-rehearsing-live-with-lemur/

Also, check out Linux Journal’s Java Sound and Music three part series.

NIN: Echoplex – Live at Rehearsals, July 2008 from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

A lot of people are having trouble with Ableton Live 7.  This is especially true with MIDI functionality.  It stems from the fact that Live 7 defaults to the DirectMusic MIDI interface.  Apparently DirectMusic then has to do emulation because the standard Microsoft MIDI driver is not DirectMusic native (Microsoft, we will never understand you..).  This is true for most USB MIDI devices.

This was affecting me by introducing high latency into MIDI I/O with my Novation Remote 61 SL and Akai MPD24.  Initially all seemed well.  Gradually, hitting a note on my keyboard would get slower and slower until the point where it was unusable.  We’re talking hit a key and wait tens of seconds before the note plays.

Luckily the fix is pretty easy.  Open up the MIDI preferences, and click the small arrow next to all your inputs and outputs.  Now simply click the port type and it will change from DirectMusic to MME.

According to the forums, there are no drawbacks to this approach.  It is unfortunate that Ableton decided to make this a default since so many people have had troubles with it.