GNU is a project to create an operating system, consisting of an extensive collection of wholly free software. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popularly known as Linux. Since GNU's own kernel never left the early stages of development, the GNU operating system is still considered not ready for production use. Most of GNU is licensed under the GNU Project's own General Public License (GPL).
Red Hat, Inc. is an American multinational software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. It became a subsidiary of IBM on July 9, 2019.
A software synthesizer, also known as a softsynth or software instrument, is a computer program or plug-in that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the same tasks that previously required the dedicated hardware of a conventional synthesizer. Softsynths may be readily interfaced with other music software such as music sequencers typically in the context of a digital audio workstation. Softsynths are usually less expensive and can be more portable than dedicated hardware.
A software sampler is a piece of software which allows a computer to emulate the functionality of a sampler.
ZynAddSubFX is a free and open-source software synthesizer for Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. As of version 3, the completely new user interface is being released under proprietary terms with an open-source-eventually intention while the synthesis engine remains under the original GPL terms.
Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizers and effects units into digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional recording studio hardware in software. Thousands of plugins exist, both commercial and freeware, and many audio applications support VST under license from its creator, Steinberg.
Rosegarden is a free software digital audio workstation program developed for Linux with ALSA and Qt4. It acts as an audio and MIDI sequencer, scorewriter and musical composition and editing tool. It is intended to be a free alternative to such applications as Cubase.
Fast Light Toolkit is a cross-platform widget library for graphical user interfaces (GUIs), developed by Bill Spitzak and others. Made to accommodate 3D graphics programming, it has an interface to OpenGL, but it is also suitable for general GUI programming.
TiMidity++, originally and still frequently informally called TiMidity, is a software synthesizer that can play MIDI files without a hardware synthesizer. It can either render to the sound card in real time, or it can save the result to a file, such as a PCM .wav file.
NoteEdit is a defunct music scorewriter for Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems. Its official successor is Canorus.
Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution.
LMMS is a digital audio workstation application program. When LMMS is executed on a computer with appropriate hardware, it allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers. It supports the Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin API (LADSPA), LV2 and Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plug-ins. It is free software, written in Qt and released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2).
The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. It also hosts and promotes the collaborative development of open source software projects.
Ubuntu Studio is a recognized flavor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, which is geared to general multimedia production. The original version, based on Ubuntu 7.04, was released on 10 May 2007.
This article presents a timeline of events related to popular free/open-source software. For a narrative explaining the overall development, see the related history of free and open-source software.
Phoronix Test Suite (PTS) is a free and open-source benchmark software for Linux and other operating systems which is developed by Michael Larabel and Matthew Tippett. The Phoronix Test Suite has been endorsed by sites such as Linux.com, LinuxPlanet and has been called "the best benchmarking platform" by Softpedia.
Linux-libre is an operating system kernel and a GNU package.
Microsoft, a technology company once known for its opposition to the open source software paradigm, turned to embrace the approach in the 2010s. From the 1970s through 2000s under CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft viewed the community creation and sharing of communal code, later to be known as free and open source software, as a threat to its business, and both executives spoke negatively against it. In the 2010s, as the industry turned towards cloud, embedded, and mobile computing—technologies powered by open source advances—CEO Satya Nadella led Microsoft towards open source adoption although Microsoft's traditional Windows business continued to grow throughout this period generating revenues of 26.8 billion in the third quarter of 2018, while Microsoft's Azure cloud revenues nearly doubled its revenue.
