Re: SMuFL

[David Kastrup]

Evan Driscoll <address@hidden> writes:

> As a fairly outside observer who is only an occasional user of Lilypond....
>
> On 08/09/2013 11:43 PM, Carl Peterson wrote:
>> The concern I have on SMuFL is that it is an as-of-yet immature standard
>> without broad support outside of Steinberg. ... Will it be a futile
>> effort because the SMuFL standard dies from lack of interest/acceptance?
>
> A flip side of that question is: How much would adding Lilypond support
> for SMuFL help to *make* SMuFL into an accepted and common standard?

Depends on what you mean with "adding LilyPond support".

a) LilyPond can read and process SMuFL fonts optionally -> nothing
b) LilyPond converts its own font infrastructure to SMuFL -> some
c) Someone takes LilyPond fonts and converts them to SMuFL -> some

What is in it for LilyPond in the context of free software?
a) depends on the availability of free SMuFL fonts.  If none -> nothing.
b) Ongoing and existing free fonts for LilyPond (Gonville, Jazz) stop
working -> worse than nothing
c) Nothing.

> I don't want to say "you guys should (not) support SMuFL", but I think
> that question is worth thinking about, even if you decide the answer
> is "probably not much." :-)

Like with many standards, it will be the task of those who want to
promote the standard to do so with sufficient incentives.  For a free
software project, the incentive would be freely redistributable fonts.
If we can't include the fonts in, say, a DFSG-compliant distribution
like Debian or bundle them with our GPL-licensed downloads, the benefits
for LilyPond as free software don't exist.

For letting proprietary vendors get interested in a standard, "gratis"
or "cheap" might be enough with regard to the incentive material.

-- 
David Kastrup