Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Buddha Buck]

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 AT&T 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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it ...

[Don Whitener]

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 ...


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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it ...

[Steve Mansfield]

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 ...

--
Steve Mansfield
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.lesession.co.uk - abc music notation tutorial,
  the uk.music.folk newsgroup FAQ, and other goodies


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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[David Webber]

- 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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bert Van Vreckem]

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 
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
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RE: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it ...

[Don Whitener]

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.



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RE: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Wil Macaulay]

 
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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bert Van Vreckem]

Bernard Hill wrote:
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.
Well, here I am. I've been programming for fun since I was 12 or so and 
when I graduated (Computer Science, that figures), I started working as 
a Java developer in a software company. I thoroughly enjoyed my work 
there (okay, except maybe on the days when deadlines were coming closer 
and I was hunting down some bloody annoying bugs). I often asked myself 
how it was possible for anyone to have so much fun and actually being 
payed for it (quite well, too, in those 'new economy- days). Now I'm a 
CS lecturer, and my feelings about this job are the same.

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.
Same here, mate! I don't have time to write software in my free time. My 
motivation to release any software that I should write as open source is:

- Almost all the software I use is open source, written by people that 
gave it away for whatever reason. By giving away, I can return the favour.
- I enjoy being able to help out people.
- Money is not an issue for me, because ("AHA! Didn't I say so?", I can 
hear you say ;-)) I have a job and I get payed.

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".
Well, I've always considered myself an *extremely* lucky man, so there 
you go...

However, I do understand your point of view. You wrote the software and 
you have every right to release it under any condition you choose and to 
charge for your hard work.

Cheers,

bert

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[John Chambers]

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.

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[ANewman110]

iabc already runs and compiles under Windows and Linux.  It uses wxWindows 
(www.wxwindows.org) as a GUI.


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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bryancreer]

Bert Van Vreckem wrote -

>Well Bryan, I'm afraid I can't even use it. I'm one of them Linux people...

When I've made my fortune from the Windows version I'll see about rewriting 
for other platforms.  (Or employ somebody else to do it.)

There's not much point in me providing the source code because it's in Visual 
Basic (and anyway, it's MINE).

Skink works in a similar way doesn't it?  Somebody else was working on the 
same sort of idea a few months ago.

Bryan Creer

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bert Van Vreckem]

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?

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bert Van Vreckem]

[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 
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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
>
>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.

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.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bryancreer]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[John Chambers]

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.

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Frank Nordberg]

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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Frank Nordberg]

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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bryancreer]

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?

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Dave Holland]

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)
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>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?

You spell "famine" with an extra i and n  ;-)

>
>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.
>
[snip]

>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?

Only to reassure me that you have another income, or explain why you are
not very hungry...


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Joerg Anders]

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])
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Jeff Bigler]

> 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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[John Chambers]

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?

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Richard Robinson]

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 ... 

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bryancreer]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Phil Taylor]

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


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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Calum Galleitch]

On Thursday 03 July 2003 7:44 pm, Bernard Hill wrote:

> 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 - ?

All my posts to this list are hereby under the GNU FDL.

Meaning yes, though I can't imagine me getting het up over it anyway :)

Cheers,
Calum
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[John Chambers]

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 ...

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
chemnitz.de>, Joerg Anders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>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- ...
>

All that is as maybe: I am not competent to judge. My question is
simple: who pays the NoteEdit developers?


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[John Chambers]

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.

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Calum Galleitch]

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,
Calum
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Joerg Anders]

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])
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[I. Oppenheim]

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/
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bryancreer]

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.

Bryan Creer

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[A.M. Kuchling]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bernard Hill]

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

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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Bert Van Vreckem]

Guido Gonzato wrote:
I think the biggest thing lacking on Windows is an open source graphical
score editor.  I use abcm2ps extensively for generating music for church,
and I have a large library of ABC worhip music, but I can interest anyone
else in learning the syntax and writing music in a text editor.
I tried to convince Joerg Anders of NoteEdit fame to make a QT-only
version of his wonderful program (this will make it possible to compile it
under Windows), but unfortunately there are technical problems... too bad.
Any talented programmer experienced with QT or FLTK...?
There are licensing issues for Qt under Windows, as previous post 
pointed out. However, there *is* an alternative: go take a look at 
http://www.wxwindows.org/. wxWindows is another cross-platform open 
source C++ GUI framework and there's no strings attached. My bank uses 
it for its netbanking application that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. I 
have no personal experience with programming with it, though.

About the subject of a graphical score editor. I used a few and I didn't 
like any of them. I was forced to switch from keyboard to mouse and back 
again constantly, there was too much freedom in layout resulting in 
ugly, unprofessional looking sheet music, etc. I have the feeling that 
typing abc is a faster way of writing tunes than the point-and-click 
approach of the common graphical score editors. However, a 'live' 
conversion to sheet music while I'm typing ABC would be nice. But very 
difficult to implement, I imagine.

bert

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
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
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Re: [abcusers] Free notation program for Windows - let's write it...

[Joerg Anders]

On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, Guido Gonzato wrote:

> > I think the biggest thing lacking on Windows is an open source graphical
> > score editor. 

> I tried to convince Joerg Anders of NoteEdit fame to make a QT-only
> version of his wonderful program (this will make it possible to compile it
> under Windows), but unfortunately there are technical problems... too bad.
> 

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.

To Trolltech at least $1550,-
(see http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/pricing.html)
because the Windows version of Qt is not free. Only
the Linux/X11/Qt version is free.

To Microsoft $ 1300,- for Visual C++ version 7. Because from
Trolltech you get only the library ".lib" (not the source). 
Because I'm note allowed to link NoteEdit with this library
(besides I pay at least $ 1550) you have to link my sources
with the Qt library by means of the Microsoft Visual
C++ version 7 program.

Another aspect: I have no interest! To give you an impression
why, I'd like to cite Trolltech's answer about this topic
in FAQ. I can't formulate this better.
(http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/noncomm.html#q43):

Q:  Why didn't you release Qt for Windows under GPL?
A:  The GNU GPL and the Trolltech QPL are open-source,
respectively Free Software licenses. Note the capital
"F". We are not talking "free" as in "free beer",
but "Free" as in "Free Speech". We released Qt/X11
under those licenses, because it runs as major component
on totally Free operating systems, such as GNU/Linux and
FreeBSD. We released Qt/Mac under the GPL since an Open
Source community with the help from Apple is emerging on the
Mac OS X platform. Once Microsoft Windows is completely
open source, we will reconsider. 

-- 
J.Anders, Chemnitz, GERMANY ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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