Re: Do we really offer the future?

[Andrew Bernard]

Hi Urs,

Can you tell me why we should be interested in helping music publishers exactly?

If they are such corporate dinosaurs that do not recognise the benefits of advanced lilypond technology, open source and open systems, of what concern is it to the community of lilypond engravers?

I would have thought that, like the invention of desktop publishing in the 1980’s, which allowed small scale companies and individuals to produce professional publications, lilypond frees composers, musicians, and engravers from the tyranny - and rejections - of the hidebound established music publishers. Why do we need Peters and Barenreiter and others? Their editions are full of mistakes and not particularly well done. How would using a finer engraving tool help the overall end product? The Barenreiter Bach Violin Sonatas are unusable due to editorial weakness, not engraving issues.

My composer colleague of the New Complexity School will never be published by the Big Firms. But he will be published by me. And with the web nowadays, the big distribution networks the Old Companies have is no longer important.

So I don’t quite understand the need to help out these companies. What exactly is the motivation? What would they put back to the lilypond development effort?

I would like to see the whole world coding in Haskell. And using Emacs. And I would like to see every engraver using lilypond - I am just as keen as you are. But we have to face the fact that these are tools for Kenner und Liebhamer - Connoisseurs and Amateurs (CPE Bach!), and not for the Hoi Polloi. It’s often the case with the best technology.

I would rather see lilypond promoted among individuals and small scale, human, firms and individual craftsmen than attempting to foist it on the established firms. Let them use it if they are enlightened. If they need vast amounts of explaining to understand it, they simply will not get it.

Andrew