Open Source Music
Posted on January 27th, 2005 | by admin |Right now I’m listening to Open Source music and its awesome. I found this site, MyVirtualBand.com from iPodder.org, and its got to be one of the most interesting open source projects I’ve ever seen, or heard.
The idea is similar to open source software in which many people volunteer time and code to a project, and in turn release the software for free. Most popular being the Linux operating system, Mozilla FireFox web browser, and Open Office.org office suite. Thats a very basic definition, if your interested in the open source philosophy check out opensource.org
Anyway, back to the music. I’m totally jamming out right now to some tunes put together by complete strangers over the internet. The basic idea is that one guy lays down some tracks, maybe a guitar riff and drum beat, then someone else will download that, layer on their own instruments, and upload it back to the community. Lather, rinse, repeat. The whole thing is released as a podcast (net radio blogish thing) under the Creative Commons license (flexible copyright for creative work).
I always thought it was amazing that volunteers all over the net could put together open software, but this open music idea is killer. Is there anything that cant be open sourced? I think I read a post on Slashdot a while back about real life free-as-in-speech beer. A take-off on Richard Stallman’s Free Software Definition essay.
Ok, all this geeking out about Freedom, jamming with these open tunes, and talking about beer has me thinking about a Yuengling run. Peace