If we're following the train of thought that free means freedom instead of free of cost, then I guess. But I think it can be safely assumed they weren't planning on releasing the source-code to the wild so that anyone could do anything they wanted to it, which is where your argument lands when taken to the Nth degree. D16 is clearly always going to hold its rights over its own software, right?

"Oh this thing isn't really free because it's only coded for Windows and not Android or Linux. What elitists! What barbarians! How dare they claim it's free when it's so tightly bound to one OS?!!"

That would be the same type of argument, yet it's clearly absurd.

"Oh this program costs me CPU processing time, so my power utilities bill is going up when I use it! How dare they get away with saying it's free! We should be able to use cloud processing for zero CPU use. Only then is it really free!"

You can make all sorts of ridiculous arguments about such things. Fact is, no one had to send any $$$$ over to D16 to use the thing. Any other restrictions, terms, or repercussions of its usage is irrelevant to the financial cost of the product.

I really don't see how anyone can seriously be picking a semantic battle over a freebie included with a mag unless they have little to no real world experience or common-sense.

 

Whenever you see something for free, YOU are the product.

In this case it is your privacy and email. Track me and spam me baby for your crippleware compressor.

 

You can register here.. https://userarea.d16.pl/frontier/beat

 

I have a special email address which I use for this kind of thing ... [email protected]

 

Same here, and I still unsubscribe if it's not that interesti g. I actually keep Plugin Alliance, Softube, Waves and Soundtoys newsletter... very useful for Waves to know when are their flash sales !

 

There are, as I'm sure most folks are aware, different definitions of free.
for example, there is free, as in:
free to pursue an interest, career, lazyness, political persuasion, religion, skill, sexual orientation etc

and there is free, as in:
free from restraint, hassle, obligations and/or conditions, having to make payments, pain etc.
both of the above imply the necessity of the non interference of third parties.
There ain't no such thing as partially free or a little bit free.

So, whichever way you look at it then, software that is claimed to be for a specific task, such as a music processing plugin for example, but then requires or performs an intervention before proper operation of that task can take place, such as activation for instance, is not free.

Then there is the use of the word free as a measure of the worth or worthessness of a thing, service or society, which is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.
In the end, what words really mean does matter, and folks wanting to sell other folks stuff often twizzle 'em round 'til the real meaning is lost in a miasma of wankwordage and confusetudination.
...yep, we can all do it.
BTW, around here BazilleCM keeps crashing Harrison Mixbus...
feel (a little bit) free to ignore this as it's not in my gift to be able to sway you. But remember that, with our speciality blue sky thinking and, having run this up the flagPole of our strategic goals, I've built this post from the ground up, not only as an exclusive, synergetic special offer of outcome driven stakeholding and best practice, but also as a client focussed barrel of monkeys and, best of all, it's free.
honest!

 

This is absolutely...Free

 

D16 group sucks anyway, so what do you expect? Shitty people make shitty products. I mean, the only product of theirs I'd find even half useful is LuSH-101. But it sucks. Mainly because it takes up way too much CPU. That's coming from a guy who a a 16GB of ram, 2TB Fusion drive, 3.6GHz Intel i7 processor. Idk about the other ones though, cuz you can kinda just tell they sound like shit b4 you even try them.
You want something good? Go for a developer such as AIR music or UVI. Yeah it's iLok, but worth it. I just bit the bullet with my money & bought UVI Falcon last week - I can easily say it's the tastiest bullet I've ever sunk my teeth into. Maybe off topic but I had to express my enthusiasm with the UVI stuff.
Or if you want something in the same league, go get something from Fabfilter or something. May not be as good as D16 but at least the devs aren't horse-shit sniffing primates.