Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thursday, Jul 3, 2003, at 13:52 US/Eastern, Buddha Buck wrote: On Thursday, Jul 3, 2003, at 06:43 US/Eastern, Bernard Hill wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] chemnitz.de, Joerg Anders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes A short remark about this. Somtimes open source is equated with cost free. But even if I'd produce a Qt-only version, you had to pay a lot. Not to me but to the Qt developer Trolltech and to Microsoft. So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment to the developer? It differs from developer to developer. For most, it's an itch to scratch. The initial developer has a problem they want solved, and writes a piece of software to solve it. The encouragement, the payback, is the solution to the problem. Most successful free software projects start that way: Unix was developed because a researcher at ATT Bell Labs wanted an operating system he could play Space War on -- and he and a few others developed it into something more general. Linus Torvalds wanted a decent clone on Unix on his home PC, and was willing to write it himself. Eric Raymond wanted a way of transferring mail from IMAP mail servers to his local mail server, so he wrote fetchmail. The Apache folks' day job was serving web-pages, but the existing solutions didn't solve their problems exactly as they needed them solved, so they wrote their own. Giving away the source code has the benefit that there are plenty of people out there who have a similar itch, but not identical, and are willing to say That's great! It solves 90% of my problem. I made the following modifications to solve the last 10%, and another itch is scratched. As the program gets more and more functional, based on user contributions, more and more people use it, etc. It's hard to make money writing free software, but it's not hard to write free software to support what is actually making you money. I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
RE: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it ...
Wil, I checked your web site, and no mention is made of having tested or running Skink under Windows XP. I would imagine that you have had some feedback by now regarding the capability of Skink with Win XP Pro, and could you comment on this, please. As a side, someone told me that XP has a built-in JRE. Do you have any knowledge of this? Would separate installation of JRE still be necessary? I have dug around a bit at Microsoft, but have not yet found an answer. Regards, Don Wil Macaulay said: A gentle reminder: Five Line Skink runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, (as long as you have Java 1.3 or better) is free (as in beer) and does (optionally) display the notes as you type. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Don Whitener wrote: As a side, someone told me that XP has a built-in JRE. Do you have any knowledge of this? Would separate installation of JRE still be necessary? I have dug around a bit at Microsoft, but have not yet found an answer. Microsoft's VM is not 100% compatible with the one from Sun. I strongly suggest using the latter. Or maybe you should try the one from MS and let us know whether it works or not... ;-) -- Bert Van Vreckem http://flanders.blackmill.net/ Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
- Original Message - From: Bert Van Vreckem [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good grief! How can you possibly do something for a living that you don't like to do? This is the sad condition of most of humanity :-( But programming is slightly different: one can enjoy programming something one is passionately interested in, and find other jobs very mundane indeed. Giving the former away for free and having to make a living at the other is very unattractive. Dave David Webber Author of MOZART the music processor for Windows - http://www.mozart.co.uk Member of the North Cheshire Concert Band http://www.northcheshire.org.uk To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it ...
I dug around a bit more late last evening. I'm not sure that I understand all that I know about this. It seems that VM may sort of go away come the first of the year. For more 'enlightnment', see: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/java/ and http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/news/jre.asp It would seem that peaceful co-existence of VM and JRE would be the prudent route. Regards, Don At 07:01 AM 7/5/2003, Steve Mansfield wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bert Van Vreckem [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Don Whitener wrote: As a side, someone told me that XP has a built-in JRE. Do you have any knowledge of this? Would separate installation of JRE still be necessary? I have dug around a bit at Microsoft, but have not yet found an answer. Microsoft's VM is not 100% compatible with the one from Sun. I strongly suggest using the latter. Or maybe you should try the one from MS and let us know whether it works or not... ;-) Been there, done that, installed the Sun JRE! Some stuff (my online banking for one) just won't work with the MS VM, and just about any serious browsing with Opera requires the Sun JRE. The two VMs do seem to co-exist quite happily though, and the machine seems to quite happily decide whether it's going to use the MS VM or the Sun one. All IME, YMMV of course ... To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote: http://www.opensource.org/halloween The ingeneers came to some very interesting conclusions: ... All that is as maybe: I am not competent to judge. My question is simple: who pays the NoteEdit developers? Therfore I recommendend the Halloween Document. The two Microsoft ingeneers collected a lot of arguments and explanation in chapter Motivation. -- J.Anders, Chemnitz, GERMANY ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 08:33:01PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote: Why are there no professional musicians who perform without being paid for it? Surely you are not trying to say that no professional musician would ever perform without payment! I know some who do. Charity events, playing for fun or as a gift, etc. * Programming is fun. Not when you do it for a living. Not everyone would agree with that. Music Publisher would not exist if I did not get income from it. [...] Isn't this completely obvious? Your situtation is entirely clear now that you've explained it. I hope you can understand that other people's situations do not match your own. Dave (professional system administrator, semi-professional musician, amateur programmer) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Phil Taylor wrote - That's the problem with live editing. The parser has to be absolutely bullet-proof, as the user can hit it with absolutely any combination of symbols. There is really no way you can test it enough either. That's one reason why I kept BarFly free for several years while under development - I needed the whole community of users to use it and tell me about the bugs in order to get it to its current state. I must admit that I have thought If I give Abacus away free I don't have to worry so much about how good it is. I'll let other people find the bugs. That's more or less what I did with Abacus 1.0.0. I've done a lot of work on the next release so I think I'm entitled to a little recompense. I'm not saying there will be no errors but we are talking shareware not big software house. Bryan Creer By the way, I don't seem to be getting Phil Taylor's postings direct, just quotes in other people's. Is this happening to anyone else? To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I'm not saying there will be no errors but we are talking shareware not big software house. I hope you are not implying that software sold by shareware methods is not as good as that sold off-the-shelf? Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
A.M. Kuchling wrote: * Members of the appropriate sex like musicians. Might be somewhat off-topic, but this reminds me of a masterclass I once attended - by the great classical guitarist Manuel Barrueco. After we had bombared the maestro with questions about fingering, polishing nails, and the minutest technical details, he summed it all up with these immortal words: Remember, everything we do, we do for the ladies! Cheers Frank Nordberg http://www.musicaviva.com To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Bernard Hill wrote: ... Why are there no professional musicians who perform without being paid for it? Hey, I'm a professional musician, and I *do* perform without being paid for it quite a lot, and so do all the collegues I know! Frank Nordberg http://www.musicaviva.com To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Jeff Bigler writes: | | Another angle is the business model that a former employer of mine | (Cygnus Solutions) used. Cygnus sold commercial-grade support and | development for free software. ... | Customers could also hire Cygnus to add specific | features or optimizations that they needed, again with development to be | done on the time scale that companies expect for commercial software. Indeed, and something similar could happen with any of the abc tools (open or closed source). There are several music publishers and other organizations who are already using abc. It's likely that some of them will want some features added to some abc tools. The programmer may not have any personal motive to implement them. But I'd bet that they could be hired to do the job. Several peope have pointed out that a problem with free software is that things get implemented only as someone needs them for their own personal use. This does tend to lead to very practical software, since it is developed by people who are actually using it. But rarely-needed features may not get implemented at all. In the case of publishers, many of them have their own formatting rules. It wouldn't be at all surprising to hear that they had contracted with some of us to modify one or more of the abc formatters to produce their format. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Bernard Hill wrote - I hope you are not implying that software sold by shareware methods is not as good as that sold off-the-shelf? It's probably better in some ways. For an analogy, if you buy your vegetables from your neighbour who's grown them in his back garden they are probably better than the ones from the supermarket but you will tolerate the occasional caterpillar and soil on the roots. Really, I was just covering my own backside. I implied that because I would like some payment for my efforts I would be more thorough than if I was giving the software away but I have limited resources and, with the best will in the world, I can't guarrantee that it will be bug free. When I have built my software publishing empire, I'll be able to afford teams of full time testers but while I'm one man in my back bedroom, the odd glitch might slip through. Bryan Creer To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
iabc already runs and compiles under Windows and Linux. It uses wxWindows (www.wxwindows.org) as a GUI. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bert Van Vreckem [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Bernard Hill wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], A.M. Kuchling [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes * Programming is fun. Not when you do it for a living. Good grief! How can you possibly do something for a living that you don't like to do? Fun was the word. Not enjoy. When you *have* to do it to make ends meet it takes the fun out of it. Ask anyone who has turned a hobby into a living. When I did something else for a living in the evenings I wrote software because I enjoyed the fun of doing so. Now in the evenings I don't write software for fun. I join in musical activities instead. But as far as not enjoying your work, my father once said to me Son, if you enjoy 25% of the work you do you are a very lucky man. Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Bernard Hill writes: | In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes | while I'm one man in my back bedroom, the odd glitch might slip through. | | Yes. Of course I am in the same position. | | I've tried using beta testers but they are rarely fierce enough. | | So I fix bugs free and within hours normally: and the customers get a | free and immediate upgrade. That's one of the main reasons that both shareware and open-source software are usually superior to what the big companies produce. That, plus the fact that the developers are usually also expert users. Recently, there have been a lot of discussions of the fact that commercial software is usually so crappy compared with what the nobodies produce. I've never thought there was any mystery there at all. In almost all corporate software development projects, I've been purposely kept away from the users. It's obvious to me what the result will be. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
RE: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
A gentle reminder: Five Line Skink runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, (as long as you have Java 1.3 or better) is free (as in beer) and does (optionally) display the notes as you type. not (yet) open source, however. wil -Original Message- From: Bert Van Vreckem To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 7/4/03 10:18 AM Subject: Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it... [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bert Van Vreckem wrote - However, a 'live' conversion to sheet music while I'm typing ABC would be nice. But very difficult to implement, I imagine. That's exactly what Abacus does. Version 1 is available from http://www.abacusmusic.co.uk/ but hang around, maybe just for a few days, and version 2 will be out. This will be shareware; price to be decided. After the hundreds of hours I've spent writing it, I think I'm entitled to a little beer money. I've no moral objection to being payed as a musician either if the opportunity arises. Well Bryan, I'm afraid I can't even use it. I'm one of them Linux people... -- Bert Van Vreckem http://flanders.blackmill.net/ Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] chemnitz.de, Joerg Anders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes A short remark about this. Somtimes open source is equated with cost free. But even if I'd produce a Qt-only version, you had to pay a lot. Not to me but to the Qt developer Trolltech and to Microsoft. So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment to the developer? I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 06:43 AM, Bernard Hill wrote: So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment to the developer? Why are there amateur musicians who perform without being paid for it? * Playing music is fun, payment or not. * They want to compose their own music that they'll like better than existing compositions. * They want to perform with their friends. * Or, they want to perform *for* their friends. * Members of the appropriate sex like musicians. So, similarly with programming: * Programming is fun. * Existing programs may not do what I want, so I'll write my own. * Collaborating with other programmers is fun. * Since I've written the code, why not give it away in case someone else finds it useful? * Here the analogy suddenly breaks down. --amk To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's exactly what Abacus does. Version 1 is available from http://www.abacusmusic.co.uk/ but hang around, maybe just for a few days, and version 2 will be out. Seems to be a nice idea! Only too bad that when I made a typing mistake, your application crashed with an Error #5 and no option to save my work... The same happened when I tried to read the Readme through the Help menu. I take it that there is no support for multiple voices [v:] or lyrics [w:] ? Groeten, Irwin Oppenheim [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~* Chazzanut Online: http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote: A short remark about this. Somtimes open source is equated with cost free. But even if I'd produce a Qt-only version, you had to pay a lot. Not to me but to the Qt developer Trolltech and to Microsoft. So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment to the developer? That wasn't the message. The message was: Use Linux and the NoteEdit is cost free! I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. Perhaps interesting: Two Microsoft ingeneers, Vinod Valloppillil and Josh Cohen had the task to answer this question in an internal Microsoft paper, which was betrayed to the open software foundation. This paper made history as the so-called Halloween Document, see: http://www.opensource.org/halloween The ingeneers came to some very interesting conclusions: Linux's (...) virtues over Windows NT include: - Customization - ... - Availability/Reliability - ... - Scaleability/Performance - ... - Interoperability- ... -- J.Anders, Chemnitz, GERMANY ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Bernard Hill writes: | In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] | chemnitz.de, Joerg Anders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes | | A short remark about this. Somtimes open source is equated with | cost free. But even if I'd produce a Qt-only version, you had | to pay a lot. Not to me but to the Qt developer Trolltech and | to Microsoft. | | So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment | to the developer? | | I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. It's basically simple: You get something that a lot of people consider valuable, an OS and lots of software that is very reliable. And since it's open, you can dig into it and quickly make it do what you want. If you find bugs, you can fix them yourself. The only catch is that you have to share your fixes with other users. But that's what makes it valuable to everyone. An anecdote from a few years back that illustrates the idea in a different form: I worked on a few projects where some of the teams were developing on Apollo workstations, and the rest were using Suns. The Apollo users were baffled by why anyone would choose Sun, when for the same performance, the Apollo workstations cost half as much. Invariably, all the teams had problems that they tracked down into the system. The Apollo users would ask Apollo, and be told We can't tell you; that's proprietary. The Sun users would ask on the public Sun and/or unix newsgroups, and would usually get an answer within hours. More often than not, the answer would come from a Sun engineer, and very often included big chunks of code. Here's exactly how it works. Because of this easy access to the innards of the system, the teams working on Suns quickly had working products, while the Apollo users were still trying to debug their code without much understanding what was happening on the inside. Even if the Sun-based systems were a bit more expensive, having a working product was a LOT better than not having one. It should be noted that Sun has since then made their systems a lot more proprietary. And now they're facing a real challenge from linux. The explanation is the same: Software developers on linux can get answers to questions very quickly. Meanwhile, someone developing on Solaris faces brick walls they can't get behind. So the linux developers get things to market much more quickly. Sun is now starting to officially support linux on their boxes. Notice that price isn't the main concern here. The important thing is whether, when you have a problem, you can get an answer. The open source idea is based on this. If the code is available, a programmer can (in principle) find the answer to any question without even asking anyone. In practice, it's even better to ask, because lots of people have the source available, and chances are someone will be able to find your answer very quickly. You don't have to depend on a vendor who is likely to say That's proprietary; I can't tell you. There has been a lot of discussion lately of the mystery of why the open source gang is able to produce software so much faster (and of higher quality) than the industrial model. It seems to violate everyone's mythology of how the market works. But the above anecdote illustrates why it's not a market phenomenon at all. Money doesn't speed up technical achievements; information does. You can't bribe a computer to do what you want; you have to hand it correct software. Proprietary systems hide information from the programmers. The linux, GNU, and other open source approach hides nothing, so everything happens faster. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], A.M. Kuchling [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 06:43 AM, Bernard Hill wrote: So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment to the developer? Why are there amateur musicians who perform without being paid for it? Because they have other jobs. Why are there no professional musicians who perform without being paid for it? * Playing music is fun, payment or not. It can be quite tedious at times, for professionals... * They want to compose their own music that they'll like better than existing compositions. * They want to perform with their friends. * Or, they want to perform *for* their friends. * Members of the appropriate sex like musicians. So, similarly with programming: * Programming is fun. Not when you do it for a living. * Existing programs may not do what I want, so I'll write my own. * Collaborating with other programmers is fun. * Since I've written the code, why not give it away in case someone else finds it useful? * Here the analogy suddenly breaks down. I'm not an amateur: I live 100% on my programming skills (and marketing and customer support and office cleaning and and and) Music Publisher would not exist if I did not get income from it. It is my *sole* source of income - I am not retired, I do not get a pension, or any allowance or have any other job at all. This is my life. If I give it away I stop developing it because I have to go back to work. Isn't this completely obvious? Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Joerg Anders writes: | On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote: | I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. | | Perhaps interesting: Two Microsoft ingeneers, Vinod Valloppillil and | Josh Cohen had the task to answer this question in an internal | Microsoft paper, which was betrayed to the open software foundation. | This paper made history as the so-called Halloween Document, | see: | | http://www.opensource.org/halloween | | The ingeneers came to some very interesting conclusions: | | Linux's (...) virtues over Windows NT include: | - Customization - ... | - Availability/Reliability - ... | - Scaleability/Performance - ... | - Interoperability- ... And in a related story that might mean a lot to the music biz, just yesterday there was the announcement of the Linux Forum that has been formed by most of the big consumer-electronics firms (Sony, Matsushita, Samsung, Sharp, Philips, etc.). The idea here is to develop a common platform with all of the above characteristics. The obvious competitor for all of them is Microsoft's Windows/CE system. But they have explained that in a market with competition, any company that has to include Microsoft royalties in their product is going to lose. And since the innards of Microsoft's system are not easily available to them, development on W/CE is slow and under Microsoft's control. Their target has a historic metaphor. We're all familiar with the old distinction between a does everything box, versus buying components and plugging them together. If you just want a single gadget and aren't too concerned with quality, you can buy a boom-box or similar all-in-one package, and be done with it. Or you can buy components, go through all the fuss of making them play nice together, and end up with much higher quality. We've long had a market for both. This Linux Forum idea sounds a lot like they're abandoning the boom-box approach to Microsoft and are aiming at a large market for components that speak common protocols. By sharing the low-level code and protocols, they may be able to make components that play together without the usual grief. Linux is the basis simply because they can get their hands on all the source, without restrictions or royalties. Their add-on software will be proprietary (and possibly pricey), but they've seen the advantage to making the lower layers shared across the industry. They can probably avoid charges of collusion and monopoly as long as the low-level stuff is kept open and available to everyone. One thing that has apparently been a shock to them: The new Apple iTunes store ($0.99 per track) is a fantastic success. But it uses a proprietary format that doesn't play on anything but a Mac. Apple is talking about a Windows version. This locks out ALL the vendors in this Linux Forum effort. They've gotta be thinking about the end of their business, with Microsoft owning the industry. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it works out. Will there be only one big boom-box for sale? Will there be a hundred vendors of quality audio and video systems? Wait and see ... To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Calum Galleitch [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes On Thursday 03 July 2003 10:43 am, Bernard Hill wrote: So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment to the developer? AMK mostly summarised it. I found it difficult to really understand why it took off until I read what RMS (Richard Stallman) wrote about it (from memory): I cannot enjoy a piece of software without sharing it with my friends. He goes on to explain that this has to mean creating Free software, but that one sentence is as succinct as I think you can get. When you consider that a bunch of mostly unpaid developers created from scratch an operating system and a complete suite of software which I've been using as my only desktop for almost a year, that's quite something. That doesn't mean that all software should be made Free. Your software is unique, as far as I know, in coming as close to a freehand notation package as possible. I don't think there's anything else with your focus. In turn, that means there isn't all that many folk that need exactly what you provide (but the folks like Willie Donaldson who do, really do). So charge them for it. And when you're retired, and you're looking at spending your time in a rocking chair, whack a GPL on it and bask in the knowledge that people are benefitting from your generosity. In the meantime, earn your living. There is a kind of zone in between two kinds of software, the one-man project of very specialised interest (abc*ps would be at the upper end of this), and high-usage applications where many developers can collaborate to create a replacement for commercial software. This zone, where your application sits, is probably the least suited to Free software. I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. Neither do I, I'm just grateful. Cheers, Thanks for your time in explaining that. And I like the description of my software... I might even use it in my advertising with your permission - ? Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Bernard Hill writes: | In message [EMAIL PROTECTED] | chemnitz.de, Joerg Anders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes | | A short remark about this. Somtimes open source is equated with | cost free. But even if I'd produce a Qt-only version, you had | to pay a lot. Not to me but to the Qt developer Trolltech and | to Microsoft. | | So what encourages the developer to develop code if there is no payment | to the developer? | | I confess I don't understand the Linux setup *at all*. It's basically simple: You get something that a lot of people consider valuable, an OS and lots of software that is very reliable. And since it's open, you can dig into it and quickly make it do what you want. If you find bugs, you can fix them yourself. The only catch is that you have to share your fixes with other users. But that's what makes it valuable to everyone. An anecdote from a few years back that illustrates the idea in a different form: I worked on a few projects where some of the teams were developing on Apollo workstations, and the rest were using Suns. The Apollo users were baffled by why anyone would choose Sun, when for the same performance, the Apollo workstations cost half as much. Invariably, all the teams had problems that they tracked down into the system. The Apollo users would ask Apollo, and be told We can't tell you; that's proprietary. The Sun users would ask on the public Sun and/or unix newsgroups, and would usually get an answer within hours. More often than not, the answer would come from a Sun engineer, and very often included big chunks of code. Here's exactly how it works. Because of this easy access to the innards of the system, the teams working on Suns quickly had working products, while the Apollo users were still trying to debug their code without much understanding what was happening on the inside. Even if the Sun-based systems were a bit more expensive, having a working product was a LOT better than not having one. It should be noted that Sun has since then made their systems a lot more proprietary. And now they're facing a real challenge from linux. The explanation is the same: Software developers on linux can get answers to questions very quickly. Meanwhile, someone developing on Solaris faces brick walls they can't get behind. So the linux developers get things to market much more quickly. Sun is now starting to officially support linux on their boxes. Notice that price isn't the main concern here. The important thing is whether, when you have a problem, you can get an answer. The open source idea is based on this. If the code is available, a programmer can (in principle) find the answer to any question without even asking anyone. In practice, it's even better to ask, because lots of people have the source available, and chances are someone will be able to find your answer very quickly. You don't have to depend on a vendor who is likely to say That's proprietary; I can't tell you. There has been a lot of discussion lately of the mystery of why the open source gang is able to produce software so much faster (and of higher quality) than the industrial model. It seems to violate everyone's mythology of how the market works. But the above anecdote illustrates why it's not a market phenomenon at all. Money doesn't speed up technical achievements; information does. You can't bribe a computer to do what you want; you have to hand it correct software. Proprietary systems hide information from the programmers. The linux, GNU, and other open source approach hides nothing, so everything happens faster. ... none of that tells me why anyone creates software in the first place. I do not start projects which are not going to bring money in. I see clearly that as an end-user having the source code is beneficial - but what's in it for the programmer who created it? Bernard Hill Braeburn Software Author of Music Publisher system Music Software written by musicians for musicians http://www.braeburn.co.uk Selkirk, Scotland To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
I.Oppenheim wrote: On Thu, 3 Jul 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's exactly what Abacus does. Version 1 is available from http://www.abacusmusic.co.uk/ but hang around, maybe just for a few days, and version 2 will be out. Seems to be a nice idea! Only too bad that when I made a typing mistake, your application crashed with an Error #5 and no option to save my work... That's the problem with live editing. The parser has to be absolutely bullet-proof, as the user can hit it with absolutely any combination of symbols. There is really no way you can test it enough either. That's one reason why I kept BarFly free for several years while under development - I needed the whole community of users to use it and tell me about the bugs in order to get it to its current state. Phil Taylor To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Irwin Oppenheim said - On Thu, 3 Jul 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's exactly what Abacus does. Version 1 is available from http://www.abacusmusic.co.uk/ but hang around, maybe just for a few days, and version 2 will be out. Seems to be a nice idea! Only too bad that when I made a typing mistake, your application crashed with an Error #5 and no option to save my work... Could you send me details? If you can tell me exactly what that typing mistake was, I'll do my best to fix it. and - The same happened when I tried to read the Readme through the Help menu. Worrying. I've changed the way I do this in the next release so perhaps it will go away. (Plze!) and - I take it that there is no support for multiple voices [v:] or lyrics [w:] ? Not yet; w: because that comes under future developments and V: because, like many others, I'm waiting for a single coherent specification of how it should work. I have my preferences, but I'll settle for something else if I know it's going to be generally accepted. Bryan Creer To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 11:41:26PM +0100, Phil Taylor wrote: I.Oppenheim wrote: On Thu, 3 Jul 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's exactly what Abacus does. Version 1 is available from http://www.abacusmusic.co.uk/ but hang around, maybe just for a few days, and version 2 will be out. Seems to be a nice idea! Only too bad that when I made a typing mistake, your application crashed with an Error #5 and no option to save my work... That's the problem with live editing. The parser has to be absolutely bullet-proof, as the user can hit it with absolutely any combination of symbols. There is really no way you can test it enough either. That's one reason why I kept BarFly free for several years while under development - I needed the whole community of users to use it and tell me about the bugs in order to get it to its current state. Which is another answer to the why write Free Software ? question - Eric Raymond's Many eyeballs make any bugs shallow. Which seems to lead to the conclusion that programs that need paying for don't work as well, which is distinctly perverse and I'm sure it ain't necessarily so ... runs away, fast -- Richard Robinson The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes - S. Lem To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
Bernard Hill writes: | | ... none of that tells me why anyone creates software in the first | place. I do not start projects which are not going to bring money in. I | see clearly that as an end-user having the source code is beneficial - | but what's in it for the programmer who created it? Fame? Of course, it could be just accidental. Consider my tune finder. I wrote it originally for very selfish reasons. I'd noticed that there were a lot of collections of tunes in abc format appearing on the web. But when I wanted to find a tune, I had to dig through all of them. And they were all laid out differently. But I'm a programmer. So I naturally thought This is a job for a computer, not a human. I happened to be somewhat familiar with the web, and knew perl pretty well. So I decided to write myself a little web search program. How hard can it be? It was a bit harder than I thought, but not much. Pretty soon I had some html files full of indexes and titles of the tunes and the URLs where I could find them. Then, being an especially lazy programmer, I wrote a little web page that let me enter a pattern to match, and a cgi script to run through the index file and show me the matches. Then I made the mistake of mentioning it to a few friends. There's no way that I can think of to make money from this yet. Yeah, google.com is profitable, but how can you get musicians to pay to look up things like this? Anyway, my web site is on a departmental machine at MIT. They are happy to see people developing interesting and innovative things on their machines, but they have a pretty strict rule that anything that makes money has gotta go. Not that they disapprove of making money; they just can't have it happening on the departmental machines. So the obvious thing is to GPL it all. In fact, all my code is sitting there in directories that you can read, so if you like, you can grab a copy and run your own tune search. So far, I don't know of anyone who has done this. I'm not surprised; it would be a learning experience. If someone does, I hope they honor the GPL and share any improvements with me and the rest of the world. It has got me a bit of notoriety. But mostly, it has given me a fairly convenient way of finding tunes any time I'm near a machine with web access, which is getting to be more and more of the world as time passes. If it helps other people too, well, as long as it's a small load on the machine (and it's a tiny load so far), they're welcome. The department likes the publicity, my name gets known among a select crowd (that's you folks). And I can use it whenever I like from anywhere. Does this need any more explaining? To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...
From: Calum Galleitch [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 20:03:01 + That doesn't mean that all software should be made Free. Your software is unique, as far as I know, in coming as close to a freehand notation package as possible. I don't think there's anything else with your focus. In turn, that means there isn't all that many folk that need exactly what you provide (but the folks like Willie Donaldson who do, really do). So charge them for it. And when you're retired, and you're looking at spending your time in a rocking chair, whack a GPL on it and bask in the knowledge that people are benefitting from your generosity. In the meantime, earn your living. Another angle is the business model that a former employer of mine (Cygnus Solutions) used. Cygnus sold commercial-grade support and development for free software. They got bought by Red Hat in 2000, but up to that point, they were best known for their support of gcc (the Gnu C Compiler). The way this worked was that customers would purchase Cygnus's support for gcc, which meant that they would get a version from our CVS tree, which we would be expected to support and provide bug fixes, on the time scale that companies expect for commercial software. Cygnus shipped the compiler with source code, which was freely modifiable and distributable (under the GPL). Customers could also hire Cygnus to add specific features or optimizations that they needed, again with development to be done on the time scale that companies expect for commercial software. Cygnus contributed all of its code back to the FSF on a more-or-less quarterly basis, so the open source community did eventually reap the benefits of the work that Cygnus did. Again, this is not to say that all software has to be free, only that there are companies that have succeeded in making money from free software. Jeff To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
