Cardinal

There is also Cardinal, a GPL fork that you can run as a plugin directly in your DAW of choice (I believe you need the paid VCV Rack to do that): https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal

The core differences are documented here: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/DIFFERENC...

Any proprietary or GPL3.0-only modules would of course not be able to be built into the binary (also bit cheeky to consider those as "missing" since they are fundamentally incompatble). And this gives VCV Rack a better value proposition, so a reason for people to specifically use it. We also have several modules that are missing from VCV Rack because they were never ported to 2.0 Some of our own modules are missing from the VCV Library because of their commercial restrictions. And while the idea of an "infinite" rack of modules is really cool, that is also not the goal of Cardinal or how we feel it is best used. Quality of quantity first. There is still a big list of potential modules to include: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/wiki/Possible-modules-to... However we are somewhat limited by what we can even build in a single CI job on

You can read about all the main differences in this document: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/DIFFERENC... One could argue that a plugin version is more than a minor feature. Cardinal is not affiliated with VCV in any way. We use the upstream Rack source-code as a base so any support towards VCV will ultimately "trickle down" (in the form of code) back to Cardinal as well.

What do you mean `trying to GPL VCV`? The Rack 2.0 project was always licensed `GPL3.0-or-later` so we are using it exactly as intended. Cardinal also contains MIT, BSD and CC0 modules. As long as all the code is compatible to GPL3.0-or-later since everything is built into a single static binary. A lot of work has gone into due diligence in order to vet all the resources that have gone into the project: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/LICENSES.... The value proposition that Cardinal offers by being self-contained is one of stability, backwards-compatibility and being able to easily share patches with other users without having to download or buy anything additional. See the differences document to better understand how the projects compare: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/DIFFERENC...

For additional context, it seems the post in the "Background" link was published sometime in 2021 or 2020 and the first release of Cardinal seems to have been in February 2022: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/releases/tag/22.02 So that is presumably why it wasn't mentioned in the post itself. There are also a couple of other more recent projects I'm aware of that relate to the issues discussed in the "No Perfect Alternative" section[0]: * CLAP Audio Plugin ABI standard[1] as alternative to single company controlled VST. * Bespoke software modular synthesizer[2] which includes a Python live-coding feature. In case anyone else is also interested in exploring this space. :) [0] https://aria.dog/barks/why-i-will-never-create-modules-for-v... [1] https://cleveraudio.org [2] https://www.bespokesynth.com

You know about Cardinal? https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal

"Installing new modules on an existing Cardinal binary is not possible at run-time, but we can add new modules to the build."[1] From the original release — being able to select 3rd-party plugins a la carte is probably Rack's most important feature, both for users and developers. Apparently there's a technical reason: "Cardinal is intentionally a fully self-contained plugin, Whatever is contained in the current build is what you can use"[2], but it seems like Rack Pro makes it work so I'm not sure why that's the case. [1]https://kx.studio/News/?action=view&url=cardinal-2202-is-now... [2]https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/FAQ.md

There's also Cardinal, which is essentially VCV Rack but provides free and open source plugins. https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal

Just FYI: you can do that too with a VST fork of VCVRack called Cardinal: https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal

The DPF framework is moving towards WASM build targets; https://cardinal.kx.studio - web version of the VCV Rack wrapper Cardinal https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/issues/287

Aside; Cardinal, a VCV Rack wrapper, compiles in a bunch of modules, and a lot of care has being taken to avoid certain software and asset licences, partly so there are no problems with distros creating a binary package https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/blob/main/docs/LICENSES....

cardinal [0] may be of interest to you [0] https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal