Re: Why All Software Should Be Open Source

On Thu, 10 Oct 2024 19:25:58 +0000, Lester Thorpe wrote:

At times I am involved with computer generated music using MIDI.
 
To create such music, a "soundfont" is required, and many soundfonts
are distributed as compressed SF2 format files.
 
To uncompress these files there are only two utilities available
(both Windoze):
 
sfArk: ????
 
SFPack: http://www.personalcopy.com/bigsounds.html
 
Fortunately, the SFPack decompressor is still available although
it is no longer (since 2007) being maintained.
 
Good luck finding an sfArk decompressor, however.  Unless one had
acquired the file a long time ago it no longer can be found on the Web.
 
Fortunately (but perhaps not), a GNU/Linux version of the sfArk
decompressor is found here:
 
https://github.com/raboof/sfarkxtc
 
Unfortunately, this FOSS version is for sfArk version 2 and
a LOT of soundfonts exist as version 1.
 
I have Windoze copies of both sfArk and SFPack but how long these
will be able to execute is uncertain.  Thus, collections of SF2
soundfonts everywhere will become FUBAR.
 
This is just one small, but highly important, example of why
all software should be open source.  As long as the source code
is available somewhere there will be no obsolescence.

In many cases you need a full archaic system, not just one package, due
to 29 cross dependencies on specific versions of libraries, compilers,
and other tools. Documenting the file formats is more important and I
guess the original software could serve as that. But eventually your
8-track tape collection just won't have anything to play it and it's
time to migrate and move on.