In the continued commercial version the basic functionality was still freeware.Ī 'Learning Pack' key could be purchased to unlock the freemium additional features, such as a sheet music display mode. However the last open-source release version 0.6.1b is still available for download. Continued development as closed-source project Īfter May 2012, Piegdon decided to stop releasing the source code, as he saw the potential commercial value of the program. Piegdon responded by hosting a contest for a new name for the project, resulting in the name, Synthesia, suggested by Daniel Lawrence. In a letter dated 26 March 2007, Activision requested that Piegdon 'immediately cease any and all use of the 'Piano Hero' name in connection with the distribution and promotion of video game and agree not to use such in the future'.
An open source fork for Linux called Linthesia also exists, which is used as a base of other forks to fix compilation issues on recent Linux systems. The program was originally for Windows-only, but after a donation drive in early 2007, it was ported to Mac OS X. Hosted as an open-source project on sourceforge, it was released under the MIT license. Synthesia was started around 2006 by Nicholas Piegdon, and was originally named 'Piano Hero'.
