Is Music Blocks Free?

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Is Music Blocks Free? This is a question that I get a lot and the answer is “Yes, Music Blocks is free.” In fact, it is free in two important ways — “Free as in Free Pizza” and “Free as in Freedom”.

Free as in “Free Pizza”

Did someone say “Free Pizza”?

Music Blocks is “Free as in Free Pizza”, which means you do not need to pay anything to use Music Blocks.

Is There a Pro Version (that costs money)?

No, there is no “pro” version that costs money to use. The main version of Music Blocks is basically the same as a “pro” version.

How Can I Pay Money for Music Blocks?

If you would like to pay for Music Blocks in order to help with development or with furthering the curriculum, you can either donate to Sugar Labs Inc. (which just received non-profit status with the IRS!) or to Remake Music LLC’s Music+Code curriculum. The former helps is a non-profit where students/teachers and developers work together to build learning tools, and is the organization where Music Blocks software development began. The latter is a small business that aims to help musicians to build their skills to be able to teach music and programming in the classroom with Music Blocks. Notably, supporting the latter will get you a USB with Music Blocks code preloaded.

Free as in Freedom

Music Blocks is “Free as in Freedom” because it gives the user important freedoms. These freedoms are important to education, privacy, and democracy. These freedoms are:

  • Freedom to Use the Software for Any Purpose
  • Freedom to Study the Program and its Source Code
  • Freedom to Modify the Program
  • Freedom to Copy and Redistribute the Program

Music Blocks is a program (i.e. app, software), which runs on a computer. This means that it does many things in a dynamic way, according to a series of scripted commands in the form of source code.

Because a program does so many things for a user on their computer, it is important that the user have freedom over what the program does. Without freedom, the user will be less in control of their daily lives. This is because they would not be able to modify how the program works.

Free Software is Good for Education

Music Blocks is about education. We want users to learn how it works, and eventually create better versions of it. Therefore, we chose a free software license, a license which protects a user’s freedom. You can read more about the license in this article. Users who choose software with this sort of “free software license”, as is the case with Music Blocks, will be able to not only use the software, but study how it works. You can read more about this philosophy in the gnu.org/education as well as my blogpost on the fsf.org website.

But wait, there’s more…

One more thing. The aforementioned “Freedom to Copy and Redistribute the Program” includes both distribution “for free” (i.e. gratis) or “for profit”. This means that you–yes you–the user has the freedom to make your own version and sell it if you want to.

What is the Catch?

The only catch is that all users of Music Blocks must abide by these same rules, and grant these same freedoms to anyone that they share Music Blocks with — whether you are sharing verbatim copies or creating your own distribution from the original code. Don’t forget the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Music Blocks is Free

So there you have it. Music Blocks is both “Free as in Free Pizza” and “Free as in Freedom”. We encourage you to exercise your freedoms and use Music Blocks, study the source code, and even create your own version(s). Cheers!

Image Credit: Dr. Martin Owens created the featured image. It is licensed under CC-BY-SA and the original presentation may be downloaded here.