Music code is a language, so its free/shareable nature is what gives it shared meaning

McLean frames TidalCycles’ freedom as a language issue, not just a distribution one: ‘free’ is not only being able to download it but having the freedom to share it with others. Because code for music is a language, and a language only carries meaning through a community of speakers who share it, sharing is a prerequisite for the language to mean anything - ‘if you don’t share language it doesn’t have the same meaning.’ This reframes open-source licensing as a compositional and social decision: the value of the musical language grows as more people can read, write, modify, and teach it.

Examples

A performer shares a Tidal pattern; others read, run, and modify it, and the shared idioms spread. The more the language is shared, the more collective meaning its constructs carry.

Assessment

Explain why McLean treats the freedom to share TidalCycles as a language issue rather than a mere software-distribution convenience.