SuperCollider is a labor of love, and amazingly, one that I have been able to live off of for 2.5 years. But it is not a very stable income. Now I've accepted a job with a major fruit company (I wore Takeko Kawamura's SuperCollider socks to the interview for good luck), and so there will be some changes.

All versions of SuperCollider are now free programs.

Copy protection is removed.

I will release the current state of affairs with SC Server on OSX soon.

I will release the source code to SC Server as soon as I am able.

Unfortunately due to the source code license of the MacZoop framework, it appears that, since I hacked up that framework pretty extensively, I would not be able to distribute all of the source code to SC 2 & 3 on OS9 without substantially recoding it.

I will continue to do some tweaking on SC in my spare time, but obviously I will have a day job and will not be able to sustain the level of work that I have in the past. I do intend to finish SC on OSX soon. SuperCollider or the ideas in it will always be my preferred way to make my own noises, so I will always be doing something in that direction.

Actually in an ideal world I would have done this long ago, but I could not make SC free and still pay my rent, so it had to be commercial. I have wanted to make it free for some time, because I know that it is only a matter of time before someone tries to copy or do something like it. And for pride, I wouldn't like for people to be using something else inferior just because it was free.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the support I've had from all of my customers. Without that support, SuperCollider would not exist. I hope no one who has paid feels cheated that it is now free. I would like, out of good will,to make a refund to people who have paid in the last month, though it will take a little time.

Since you will all soon have access to the source code for SC Server, and a larger user community due to the new low low price, I think that this turn of events will be a positive one for SuperCollider.

Finally a Zappa quote:

"This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER.. As you can see MUSIC [software] can get you pretty f***ed up... Take a tip from Joe, do like he did, hock your imaginary guitar and get a good job... Joe did, and he's a happy guy now,"