Re: New Progressive Rock songbook created with LilyPond

[David Kastrup]

Peter Crighton <address@hidden> writes:

> 2014-01-29 Urs Liska <address@hidden>:
>
>> Am 29.01.2014 01:52, schrieb Peter Crighton:
>>
>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> maybe this is of interest for some of you.
>>> Over the last months I created the accompanying songbook for Progressive
>>> Rock band Transatlantic’s new album Kaleidoscope. Like my last book for
>>> Neal Morse it was all done in LilyPond.
>>
>> I think this would warrant a Ponding (forwarding to but-lilypond).
>> But it would be nice if there were at least an example page somewhere.
>
> Do I have to do anything in order for it to get into the Pondings?
> I sent a sample page to Radiant Records, so they could include it on their
> page, but they seem to have chosen not to do so, or probably they just
> forgot. However, the Look Inside feature on Amazon is now available, so
> here you can see some pages:
> http://www.amazon.com/Kaleidoscope-Songbook-Transatlantic/dp/0615947077/
>
> I like the idea of writing a blog post. I have to see, though, if I can get
> round to it, at the moment I have to carefully ponder what to spend time on.

I think that for media that are licensed proprietarily, this section of
the GNU coding standards would apply:
<URL:https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/References.html#References>

    By contrast, it is ok to refer to journal articles and textbooks in
    the comments of a program for explanation of how it functions, even
    though they are non-free. This is because we don’t include such
    things in the GNU system even if they are free—they are outside the
    scope of what a software distribution needs to include.

    Referring to a web site that describes or recommends a non-free
    program is promoting that program, so please do not make links to
    (or mention by name) web sites that contain such material. This
    policy is relevant particularly for the web pages for a GNU package.

Regarding the "This is because we don’t include such things in the GNU
system even if they are free—they are outside the scope of what a
software distribution needs to include." angle: there _is_ the Mutopia
project loosely affiliated with LilyPond which strives to provide freely
redistributable music, so I don't think we should really be advertising
proprietary media on our website.

This is different to advertising particular _performances_ as those are,
as opposed to media, not really in competition with free offers:
visiting a commercial performance does not remove the incentive to visit
or help create a free performance.

So I'd lean against announcing non-free media created with the help of
LilyPond on our website.  I mean, the GCC website does not list as
endorsement various kinds of proprietary software compiled using GCC
either.

So I'd suggest to use other channels for advertising non-free sheet
music.  LilyPond explicitly can be used for creating it, but if it is
placed outside of the free software and media universe, there is no
reason to additionally endorse it.

-- 
David Kastrup