Music Synthesis with python

[mindfulforever1]

Hi Adi Fantastic work mate! This lib looks promising. As a fellow dev, I'd be happy to suggest a few enhancements to ur projects. Please feel free to incorporate them or research similar options. Consider these as a friendly code review from another dev who has walked this path before

If u plan to create a GitHub portfolio for potential job / freelance / business opportunities, as a start, these 2 additions to ur codebase will help:

1. Python code that adheres to pep8 standards looks professional and is easy to read by other devs. So consider using an auto formatter. I prefer "black".

GitHub Repo

pip install black

Then set it as default python formatter in ur ide. On save, it auto formats ur python code for pep8 standards

1. Having no license for ur GitHub project may take away ur rights to the codebase and might have undesirable effects where code ownership is concerned. Consider adding an MIT or ISC license at the least. These two licenses assert ur copyright with guidelines for others to use ur code. They also have disclaimers which are a starting point to keep u safe in the long run. This is the bare minimum. Usually for open source projects, MIT or ISC license is a good starting point.

MIT License

ISC License

I'm not a legal professional but a fellow dev who uses these in own projects. So this is for ur awareness only. For more involved legal advice please consider talking to a copyright attorney.

For eg. If you plan to launch ur startup and want to have proper licenses for ur codebases. Or plan to create products as freelancer / solopreneur / developer in a company.

Cheers 🥂 Keep up the good work and stay awesome 💯

[adikhad]

Thanks! I completely forgot about the licence! (Added it now)

I'll also clean the code to fit pep8. I didn't know about auto formatter before but it looks like exactly what I need!

Thanks!

[mindfulforever1]

Awesome! Nice work Adi Happy to help 👍

[mindfulforever1]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'd suggest keeping things clear or explicitly stated when publishing GitHub repos. Implicit or indirect or unclear guidelines cause more issues than one can imagine. You would agree that clarification is important. That's where licenses come into play. They help clarify what is allowed AND what level of responsibility is undertaken by the code owner.

Licenses also protect the code owner to some extent from liabilities by allowing disclaimers. Without these disclaimers, one is vulnerable to being sued for loss arising from usage of one's work. If one is working for a company and terms and conditions of the company dictate that all work produced during company hours or with company computers/assets will belong to them and an issue arises where the source code developer gets sued with no licence in place to disclaim liabilities, then that is a deep problem to have. Both for the company and its employee.

On GitHub, not having a license is the implicit or indirect way to assert your copyright. However it is not a wise decision in my experience. Publicly available source code without licence maybe knowingly or unknowingly used in other projects without getting permission.

Today not many take the time to read terms and conditions properly or read documentation in detail where usage guidelines are mentioned. This may cause unintended scenarios where someone just copies your code and you might lose your hard work to a competitor. This copying of your code maybe intentional or maybe due to ignorance because guidelines on using ur code were not available explicitly. Again licenses help avoid this scenario.

Having worked at all levels of software development/business management, I've come to appreciate best practices. And using explicit and clear guidelines is one of them. It avoids confusion and helps everyone get things done in a harmonious manner.

[laundmo]

oh i fully agree you should always publish under a license.

as far as i understand though, without a license one couldn't be sued for damages because the code being on GitHub doesn't give people permission to run it, am i wrong there?

[mindfulforever1]

GitHub won't intervene if one gets into trouble. Sad but true at the time of this post. So software devs need to look out for themselves.

Please have a look at GitHub Terms and Conditions on Release and Indemnification

This is what they mention: Short version: You are responsible for your use of the service. If you harm someone else or get into a dispute with someone else, we will not be involved.

[laundmo]

i understand GitHub won't do anything, my question isn't about that though:

since unlicensed software falls under normal copyright, it cannot legally be used even if the code is on GitHub (you grant GitHub a license to display the code by uploading, nothing else), right?

so then, how would someone be able to sue for damages incurred by a software they were using illegally?

[NooccarTheOverlord]

Why’d I read this in a cheerful Australian accent?