Re: New Sibelius to LilyPond conversion suite

[Michael Good]

Hi Martin and Kirill,

Martin, MusicXML is pervasive in the music preparation business, whether it is 
preparation for print music, film, or TV. It is not yet used very widely as a 
consumer format for sheet music, but this is starting to change. You can see 
the list of sites offering MusicXML scores at:

  http://www.recordare.com/xml/sites.html

The list of software supporting the MusicXML format - over 120 programs so 
far - is available at:

  http://www.recordare.com/xml/software.html

MusicXML itself is a free format, and as you can see is used widely in both 
commercial and free software. We support developers in all areas. But to stay 
in business, and keep developing the MusicXML format and its related software, 
we have to charge for our plug-ins.

Kirill, I appreciate your position regarding free software, and your 
frankness. One thing that I hope you will consider doing - once your current 
Sibelius plug-in is completed - is to work on a converter from LilyPond to the 
MusicXML format.

LilyPond may be free software, but it has more lock-in than nearly any current 
commercial music notation product. Scores can only be imported into LilyPond 
format. They can never be moved effectively from LilyPond to another notation 
program. 

MusicXML was invented to get rid of this type of proprietary format lock-in. 
Most commercial products added MusicXML export years ago, either directly or 
via plug-ins. It is unfortunate that LilyPond users cannot take advantage of 
the same data freedom that Finale and Sibelius users can.

We hope in the future that LilyPond will be as supportive of the open MusicXML 
format as most commercial software. If there is already a converter from 
LilyPond to MusicXML that I have missed, please let me know. If my objections 
are out of date, that would be excellent news!

Best regards,

Michael Good
Recordare LLC