Congratulations to the Audacity development team and Muse Group. In two significant developments, Audacity version 3 was released in March 2021 – its first major update in many years – and Muse Group announced that it has acquired the Audacity project and will take it forward as a free and open source project.
Audacity is a free and open source digital audio editing and recording application. Started by Dominic Mazzoni and Roger Dannenberg, it has clocked over 200 million downloads during its lifetime, and has been translated into dozens of languages. Eric Raymond once wrote of Audacity: “The central virtue of this program is that it has a superbly transparent and natural user interface, one that erects as few barriers between the user and the sound file as possible.” High praise, indeed.
Muse Group already runs the popular open source MuseScore notation software project and distributes the Tonebridge guitar effects app, as well as offering the Ultimate Guitar Tabs service – tools known to working musicians everywhere.
Here is more about the announcement from the Audacity site.
On a personal note, I had the pleasure to assist the Audacity team in this matter. Audacity has long been one of my open source favorite projects, one with an impressive technical quality and community. I am glad to see it get the resources and support it needs to continue to thrive and grow.
