Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Joseph Wakeling <address@hidden> writes:

> On 06/19/2010 07:50 PM, Valentin Villenave wrote:
>> Ditto here. I have contacted dozens of French universities, music
>> schools, government-funded music structures and whatnot. Everytime I
>> got an answer, the answer was: "Fuck off, we already have Finale".
>> 
>> Or something like that.
>
> What were the nature of the proposals or enquiries you made?
>
> I'm asking because of my own experience, now, working for an
> organization where the leadership is quite
> traditional-business-oriented, and trying to steer their thinking in
> more open ways.

Well, I have to state quite clearly that one of the largest problems
Lilypond faces is usability.

Selling Lilypond to an aspiring music typesetter is like selling a Midi
expander to an aspiring musician.

"Here is everything you need to create beautiful music.  Come here
tomorrow morning with your favorite Midi Master control device, we have
everything you need to get music from that." is not how you attract
aspiring musicians.  "Come here tomorrow morning with your favorite text
editor, we have everything you need to get typeset music from that." is
in the same book.

People want a _solution_ to their problem, not new problems they never
thought about and which are not actually in their personal problem
space.  You can't stop at selling Lilypond to somebody without having an
answer to "how do I start this thing"?  How many people are complaining
that they double-click on the Lilypond icon and nothing happens?

People try to be editorially neutral, and not suggest any choice of
religion like vi, Emacs, whatever.  That's nice for the faithful, but in
the real world, the editor wars are not just over, but have not left an
impact.  People are editor agnostic, worse editor ignorant.  You tell
them to use an editor and they'll do.  Even if it is vi.  Actually, some
will be conspiring behind your back to convince others that things could
be so much nicer if they took things into their own hands, but with
tepid success.

-- 
David Kastrup