
This new agreement also stipulated that Muse Group must be given unrestricted rights to all contributions.Ī significant portion of the community felt the new CLA compromised the values of the open source ecosystem, built around the concepts of transparency and collaboration, by allowing Muse Group to use code submitted by contributors in other non-open source projects.ĭespite Ray’s assurances, it appears the privacy policy change was the final straw for many. Later, Muse Group ruffled feathers with a new Contributor License Agreement (CLA) for Audacity (opens in new tab), which contributors were required to sign if they wanted to continue to work on the project.

The company put the incident down to an error of communication.
Open source audacity audio editor spyware software#
Audacity controversyĮver since Muse Group acquired Audacity earlier this year, relations between the company and the open source community have been strained.įirst, the software firm had to backtrack on plans to introduce an option to collect telemetry data after a backlash from contributors. Ray attributed the confusion to the fact the policy was “written by lawyers, to be understood by lawyers rather than the average person”, although this will be cold comfort for users’ concerned about data privacy.

“If you don’t have ways of informing users about updates they might miss, then you put the burden on the user to keep up with the pace of change,” he explained. According to Ray, the changes were designed to allow the company to notify users of planned updates to Audacity, which will supposedly now take place every few weeks.
