Pace buys JUCE from Roli

[ElmerJFudd]

https://juce.com/discover/stories/juce-announces-acquisition-by-pace

 

"Initially released in 2004, JUCE became part of ROLI Ltd. in 2014. Under ROLI"s leadership, JUCE evolved into the primary framework for developing cross-platform audio applications. ROLI also worked with the JUCE team and the vibrant JUCE community to create the Audio Developer Conference, the foremost meeting of audio software and hardware developers.

Roland Lamb, founder and CEO of ROLI, said, 'It has been a pleasure and an honor for ROLI to be a steward of JUCE over the last six years. We"re really proud of the work we"ve done to build the framework, grow the community and start ADC. I believe that PACE will be an ideal new home for the framework and the conference. They have a strong track-record of serving developers with essential tools, and Allen is a true technologist who has the leadership vision and technical understanding to help take JUCE to the next level.'

PACE specialises in software IP protection and secure licensing, and has been making developer tools for software creators for over 35 years. As PACE"s tools are used by a large number of world-class audio software publishers the company understands the importance of JUCE as a foundational piece of industry software infrastructure.

'I"ve always had the utmost respect for Jules, his work, and the team he"s put together,' said Allen Cronce, founder and CEO of PACE. 'The JUCE framework is very important to the pro audio community and our customers. We"re happy to give the JUCE team a new home and look forward to supporting their continued efforts that make JUCE a world-class application framework.'

This acquisition provides JUCE the opportunity to grow further within an entirely developer-focused company, to execute on an ambitious roadmap and continue to serve the needs of the audio developer community.

Jules Storer, founder of JUCE, was closely involved in the process. He said, 'ROLI has been a great home for JUCE, helping it grow into one of the most important tools in the audio industry... However, that importance also meant that it began to attract some acquisition offers! Of the many companies who expressed an interest, PACE came out tops for us in terms of what a good owner of JUCE needs to offer: their culture is completely developer-focused, they're a neutral company who are in the licensing business and already have relationships with many JUCE customers, and their motivations for owning it align with those of the JUCE team.'

'We"ve been impressed by the depth of the technology they're working on, and we were all very happy to give the go-ahead for this. For me personally, my day-to-day schedule won't change much - I'll still remain at ROLI, mainly working on SOUL, but also advising the JUCE/PACE team.'

Both PACE and JUCE benefit from a thriving ecosystem of audio developers and tools, and JUCE remains committed to helping the entire community to learn from each other, share ideas, and create world class software."

[Dr Mike Metlay]

First reaction: No more ROLI? Yay.

 

Second reaction: PACE? Eurgh.

 

Third reaction: PACE in 2020 vs. PACE ten or fifteen years ago? Hmmmmm.

 

The main concern devs had when JUCE ended up at ROLI was that licensing costs would go through the roof. This is still a possibility at PACE, and it would be a huge problem, because JUCE is a pervasively popular development platform and a lot of relatively broke little companies use it because they have to.

[Theo Verelst]

Without having to read though miles of obscuring language: JUCE to my knowledge is an Open Source and (maybe within certain limits) Free audio lib. Has that changed ? I think Dexed or something similar compiles on windows and Linux using some of those libs.

 

T

[Mark Schmieder]

I almost posted this yesterday but thought it might be too developer-centric to be of interest here.

 

There's a good discussion going on over at vi-control.net and I learned a lot from what is being said there. For one thing, the source code for JUCE is open source and has already been forked a few times, so it should be safe from any long-term business decision made by PACE.

 

Lots of small developers use JUCE, or have migrated to it recently (even from Qt), for VI's and plug-ins. I think MOTU still uses JUCE, but they may have switched technologies recently. My recollection is that it isn't used for Digital Performer, but might be used for MX4, MachFive/UVI Workstation/Falcon, and maybe the MasterWorks plug-in effects? When I see stuff done with JUCE, I find it sharp and easy on the eyes.

 

I have never used JUCE but several co-workers have and say it is the easiest to use, perhaps simply because it doesn't try to be all things to all people and thus is a smaller and more focused GUI toolkit than most.

[ksoper]

JUCE is a pervasively popular development platform and a lot of relatively broke little companies use it because they have to.

 

I know absolutely nothing about how this works. The Moog One ui is JUCE-based. Does a manufacturer pay for one license to cover a product line or for each instrument built?

 

For one thing, the source code for JUCE is open source and has already been forked a few times, so it should be safe from any long-term business decision made by PACE.

 

 

This probably answers my question. We posted minutes apart and I didn't see this.

[Zalman Stern]

ROLI also sold BFD to inMusic today. (inMusic is the owner of Alesis, Akai, etc. Hoping it bodes well for Alesis pad and edrum products.)

 

-Z-

[Baggypants]

JUCE is dual licensed under the GPLv3 or proprietary licence. https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE/blob/master/LICENSE.md. If you make a synth under the GPL licence then, if you distribute your synth, you're also required to distribute your source code along with it in some fashion (most people create a github project). However if you purchase a licence from the shop https://shop.juce.com/get-juce it's not GPL so you don't have to distribute your code.

 

ROLI essentially have transferred the proprietary licensing and copyright and, more likely, the development team in the purchase. JUCE is nothing without it's coders after all.