Re: Oskar Fried: the Big Bang

[David Kastrup]

Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:

> Janek and I have made some fuzz recently about that secret March 11,
> and now's the time to disclose the great news:
>
> Our edition of Oskar Fried's songs was elected "BEST EDITION 2014" by
> the German Music Publishers' Association, and we'll receive the award
> at the Frankfurt Musikmesse on Friday!
>
> :-) :-) :-)
>
> I won't repeat everything you might be interested in, instead I
> strongly suggest you read our blog post at
>
> http://lilypondblog.org/2014/03/oskar-fried-the-big-bang/
>
> One important thing has to be said, though:
> We intend to open up the edition and make its sources freely available
> - 
> as soon as the publisher's expenses have been fully covered. For this
> to become reality we really need your support. _Please_ also visit our
> crowdfunding campain at http://igg.me/at/free-fried and _please_
> spread the word as widely as possible.

My congratulations!  Completing this project using LilyPond to that kind
of acclaim is of course quite an accomplishment.  From previous blog
posts we know that LilyPond has not really been used as a turnkey-ready
tool here: lots of semi-manual work has gone into this project, leading
to compelling results but also source code that is more tied into the
particular version of LilyPond used here than desirable.

The ultimate dream for LilyPond is that old LilyPond scores, like old
wine, become better with age, with the printed score becoming more
complex and more refined while its source code, when actively
maintained, loses more and more tweaks and hacks until it just expresses
the music.

Now this edition starts out in award-winning quality of the printed
score.  It's a really big chance to be see how feasible it would be to
have a score like that "age gracefully", namely produce good results
with future versions of LilyPond.  Projects like the "edition engraver"
of Jan-Peter might provide helpful tools for tracking a score through
various LilyPond versions.

So it is very exciting that the authors, active members of LilyPond's
development, are willing to making the score and its sources available
under a free license once they can consider their upfront costs and
efforts covered.

While the GNU project is focused about providing the four software
freedoms tantamount, namely the freedom to run software for any purpose,
the freedom to study how a program works and change it to make it do
what one wishes, the freedom to redistribute copies, and the freedom to
improve a program and release improvements to the public, it is easy to
see that similar freedoms are desirable for playing, adapting, and
exchanging music.

With the music industry having a tradition of employing copyrights for
securing publishing monopolies reaching back several centuries, and with
engraving arts getting forgotten because the current copyright durations
have allowed the established publishers to rest on their laurels (or
rather, their plates) for too long, getting an award-winning reference
point for improving LilyPond would be certainly an inspiration and help.

So be sure to check out the crowdfunding campaign.

-- 
David Kastrup