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.

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* 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.

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* 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.

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* 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.

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* 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.

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* 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.

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