Re: Hushing up Sibelius news?

[David Kastrup]

Adam Spiers <address@hidden> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 10:53 PM, Hilary Snaden
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On 2013-02-21 19:58, Urs Liska wrote:
>>>
>>> http://blog.steinberg.net/2013/02/welcome/
>>
>>
>> These from Daniel Spreadbury tell me most, I think, of what I need to know
>> about the new project.
>>
>> "Our application will use a proprietary file format... an open source file
>> format is only any use if you also have a wide range of software that can
>> make use of that format... the Lilypond file format itself does not
>> describe
>> exactly how the finished score will appear..."
>>
>> Thanks, but no thanks.
>
> I just blogged about this:
>
> http://blog.adamspiers.org/2013/02/25/music-industry-learns-nothing-from-the-avid-sibelius-saga/

Well, I see some fatally flawed assumptions here, riding on your notion
"both MuseScore and GNU LilyPond would serve as excellent starting
points for a world-class music notation product."

Now I can't vouch for MuseScore, but GNU LilyPond is anything but a
"starting point" for software development.  It is large with an
elaborate and complex architecture.  And most particularly, an
architecture that is not the core expertise of the former Sibelius
development team.

They are, as a group, focusing on their areas of expertise and teamwork,
and that will imply similar architectural choices as the ones they are
already familiar with, in order to continue working as a competitively
efficient team.

They also are not in a position to prescribe the business models to
Steinberg, and of course, starting from LilyPond implies a business
required to distribute under the GPL.

I can perfectly well understand their development choices.  However,
they are in the same position of dependency as they were under Avid.  If
Steinberg decides to pull the plug, they'll be empty-handed again, left
without software they are allowed to continue working with.  And as
opposed to the buyout from Avid, they'll not have potential restarting
capital as a compensation.

So again, their brainchild might be taken from them and left in the
desert to bleach, and all they will have gotten for it will be paper
from the bank.  Good for trading stuff, but not helpful in itself for
leaving anything of lasting relevance to the world.

> Like it or not (and I certainly don't), a large proportion of people
> who need to notate music will run away screaming if you explain the
> compilation-based design of LilyPond to them.  I think
>
>   http://lilypond.org/text-input.html
>
> is absolutely fantastic, but some people's aversion to anything which
> looks at all technical seems unsurmountable to me (although I'd love
> to be proven wrong; after all, I still see "non-technical" airport
> staff happily typing cryptic commands into old-school terminals in
> order to query flight data ...)

The staff is getting trained for that.  That's all it takes: training
and confidence.  Ask Janek.

-- 
David Kastrup