Audacity

Audacity is a multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. It is the answer for recording and editing sound on a desktop without buying into a commercial audio workstation, and the source for it all lives here.

The repository itself is currently in the middle of a major structural change. Work is under way on Audacity 4, which means an entirely new interface along with refactoring across the codebase, and that work occupies the master branch.

That distinction matters if you plan to build or contribute rather than download a release.

• Two branches: Audacity 4 sits on master, while patches for the 3.x series should branch off audacity3.
• Separate build instructions: each line has its own build guide, with the 3.x one kept against the 3.7.0 release.
• Contributor warning: the maintainers say plainly that master is not friendly to newcomers at the moment.
• Test coverage: a unit test workflow publishes a coverage badge for the new codebase.
• Where news lands: progress is posted on YouTube, on Discord and on the project blog.

Licensing is GPLv3 overall, with most code files GPLv2 or later. The exceptions are the third party libraries bundled under the au3 lib-src directory and the VST3-related code, and documentation is CC-by 3.0 unless a file says otherwise.