A now-obsolete MIDI software package and interface standard developed, in the mid-1990s, by MOTU for tying sequencer software to MOTU’s line of MIDI interface hardware. Like OMS, the FreeMIDI system allows the user to build a description of what type of MIDI interface hardware is being used and which synths and other devices are using which channels. FreeMIDI then provides this information to the sequencer software, and the sequencer can address the MIDI devices without regard to what type of interface hardware is being used.
In the late 1990s, MOTU made FreeMIDI open source and tried to establish it as a de facto standard. They developed versions for both the Windows and Mac platforms, at a time when most MIDI computer interface software was proprietary to one platform or the other. However, other hardware manufacturers were leery, and it never really caught on as an open standard. Apple's introduction of the OSX operating system in 2001, with its built-in Core MIDI interface software, eliminated the market for other MIDI interface standards on the Mac platform, and MOTU abandoned further development of FreeMIDI shortly after.