Boodler: a programmable soundscape tool
Version 1.5.3
Designed by Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@eblong.com>
<http://www.eblong.com/zarf/boodler/>
Copyright 2002 by Andrew Plotkin
This program is distributed under the LGPL. See the LGPL document, or the above URL, for details.
- WHAT IT IS
Boodler is a tool for creating soundscapes -- continuous, infinitely varying streams of sound. Boodler is designed to run in the background on a computer, maintaining whatever sound environment you desire.
Boodler is extensible, customizable, and modular. Each soundscape is a small piece of Python code -- typically less than a page. A soundscape can incorporate other soundscapes; it can combine other soundscapes, switch between them, fade them in and out. This package comes with many example soundscapes. You can use these, modify them, combine them to arbitrary levels of complexity, or write your own.
Boodler is written in Python, with one module (cboodle) written in C. It was developed under Python 1.5.2; more recent Python versions should work as well. (It's been tested up to Python 2.2, though not by me.)
Boodler can be built to use either the OSS sound driver interface, the ALSA sound driver interface, or the ESD (EsounD) sound server library. It can also write raw sound output to a file.
Boodler does not come with any warranty of any sort whatsoever.
- GETTING STARTED
To get Boodler up and running: point your web browser at the contents of the documentation folder (doc/index.html in this package) and follow the "Installation" link.
Note that to run the soundscapes included with this package, you will need the Boodler sound library, which you must download separately. (I separated it out because it's huge.) Go to the web URL listed above.
- LICENSING FOR USERS (Running Boodler)
Boodler is free software, and you may run it freely. (Portions of the Boodler source code are copyrighted and licensed under the LGPL, and other portions are public domain. Neither of these restrict you in any way from running the program.)
However, there is another legal issue. Boodler operates by combining sound-sample files into a ongoing stream of sound -- a soundscape. Legally speaking, when you run it, you are creating a derivative work based on those sound files.
The sound files in the Boodler sound library are not all in the public domain. Most of them are licensed "for private and non-commercial use only". Some were found by random searching around the web, and appear without any copyright statement at all.
It is my opinion (not backed by any legal advice) that if you run Boodler for your own private use, using the Boodler sound library, you are within the scope of fair use and the "non-commercial use" licenses of those sounds.
However, if you play the sound output of Boodler (based on the Boodler sound library) as a commercial performance, or include it in a recording sold for profit, you may not be complying with the copyright restrictions on those sounds. You will have to look at the README files in the sound library and decide whether your performance is legal.
Note that this legal issue is solely a problem of playing particular sounds from the Boodler sound library. If you create your own Boodler soundscape, based solely on your own sound-sample files, then that stream of sound is entirely your own work; you may do with it as you wish.
- LICENSING FOR SOUNDSCAPE DESIGNERS (Extending the effects)
The Python scripts included in the ./effects directory are in the public domain. They are intended to be used as code samples as well as soundscapes. You may modify, extend, combine, and pervert them as you wish.
If you write your own soundscapes (sound agents), you may license them as you wish -- GPL, LGPL, some other license. Or you might choose to not release them at all; you are not obligated to do so.
If you write a particularly interesting soundscape, you are welcome to contribute it to the Boodler project. As a matter of consistency, I prefer that all soundscapes that I distribute in the ./effects directory of this package be public domain (uncopyrighted). If your soundscape uses sounds that are not in the Boodler sound library, you should contribute those as well. To maintain consistency (again), all sounds in the sound library should be either public domain, or licensed free for non-commercial use.
- LICENSING FOR PROGRAMMERS (Modifying Boodler and incorporating it into other software)
I consider Boodler to be more like a software component than a stand-alone program. Accordingly, I have released it under the GNU Library General Public License (the LGPL). To be precise, the workhorse parts of Boodler -- the boodle Python package, and the modules it contains (including cboodle) -- form a library, which is licensed under the LGPL. (The C and Python sources in the boodle and cboodle directories are the source code to this library.)
The Python program boodler.py is simply a shell that starts up the Boodler library. I have released boodler.py into the public domain. You may do with it as you like. However, understand that if you write a program that is intended to link in the Boodler library (regardless of whether you use boodler.py), then your program is a work that uses the library, and must behave appropriately. See the LGPL document for details.