Re: Bounties

[Xavier Scheuer]

2012/1/24 Janek Warchoł :
>
> Xavier, may i ask you an unusual question?  Feel free to ignore it.
> Why could you want to become "bounty hunter" (i.e. person that
> organizes bounties and sponsorship)?

This topic is not that easy, as expresses the numerous replies showing
the different concerns of everyone.


On 25 January 2012 02:06, Tim McNamara  wrote:
> As a user, I would tend to prefer to just kick money into a general
> fund and let someone figure out how it gets utilized

One or two French users also made a similar proposition and asked where
they could send such donations to a "general (LilyPond Develoment)
fund".  This is a different approach than the "pay-per-feature/fix".


On 25 January 2012 12:38,   wrote:
>  In the meantime, I think people should take a gander at:
>
> http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=fr
> http://ardour.org/
> http://musescore.org/fr
>
> They're all music related projects that have a donation system implemented.
>  Especially with MuseScore, we could just ask them how if it has proven to
> be effective for them.

I think MuseScore funding relies (mainly?) on musescore.com "Pro Account",
providing an enhanced version of musescore.com storage site for scores.
http://musescore.com/upgrade
IIRC lasconic (Nicolas Froment) said the 3 main developers (Werner
Schweer, Thomas Bonte and himself) are now working full-time on
MuseScore.  Actually I planned to speak with them about that point at
FOSDEM.  Does someone have some specific questions I could ask?

I'd say also that a project like "Open Goldberg" is not bad for
MuseScore.  I don't know if they earn a lot of money from it but at
least it brings MuseScore a nice visibility.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/293573191/open-goldberg-variations-setting-bach-free

AFAIK LilyPond has not been "involved" in such kind of projects.

Cheers,
Xavier

-- 
Xavier Scheuer 

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Re: Bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 02:29:28PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> I would want to avoid
> the situation where I have money on my hand I can't spend in good
> conscience.

In that case, only accept transfers which you feel cover existing
work (provided the sender realizes this), or transfers which are
an advance payment of future work.

> So I would attempt of using the next LilyPond report for
> fishing for _personal_ LilyPond funds,

As long as nobody else has put their name on the Sponsorship page,
sounds good to me.

> trying to present the results of
> the previous discussions about official channels and see what the
> responses in turns of better ideas as well as actual donations are.

No.  I am not interested in setting up any official channels for
this.  That is a barrel of worms that we do *not* need right now.
:/

> Once we get in the situation where I would tell prospective _personal_
> _account_ donators that I already got myself covered,

... which will happen shortly after a princess reads my blog,
falls madly in love with me, marries me, and gives me an allowance
of a few million dollars.  In short, it's not going to happen.

Oh, but if it does, here's a message for my future bride: hey
babe, I'm not proud.  I'll happily be your kept man!

> or where we find
> that people are willing to provide money for LilyPond developments that
> someone else would be better suited to take up, we might have to rethink
> about putting something up that is less personal than "currently you can
> support some LilyPond developments by supporting David".

maybe.  I would rather have interested parties add their name to
the Sponsorship page.

- Graham

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Re: Bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:09:25PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
> There are already existing free software umbrella organizations that
> do this: one is SPI[1], another SFC[2].

Yes, I've considered suggesting (after Valentin suggested it to
me) that we might want to approach SFC, but it hasn't been the
right time yet.

- Graham

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Re: Bounties

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012, David Kastrup wrote:
> I do share Graham's concerns which have been previously hashed out
> in private discussions: an official money channel for LilyPond is
> not something easy to set up.

There are already existing free software umbrella organizations that
do this: one is SPI[1], another SFC[2]. I'm not sure about the
particulars of them paying out bounties, but ISTR it happening or at
least being discussed in the past. This would require a bit of
organization on the part of the lilypond project to become an
associated project, but the actual intake and disbursement of funds
would be handled by SFC or SPI in an open manner.[3] I believe the
overhead for both SPI and SFC are on the order of 5% (though I think
SFC has a non-mandatory overhead), with additional overhead for
transfer fees.


Don Armstrong

1: http://www.spi-inc.org; full disclosure: I'm a Debian Developer and
SPI contributing member, and know most of the board members.

2: http://www.sfconservancy.org/; full disclosure: I'm friends of
Bradley Kuhn, the executive director of SFC, and know some of the
board members.

3: http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/ for example.
-- 
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall
Find thy body by the wall!
 -- Matthew Arnold

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu

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Re: Bounties

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> Can someone do a survey how other free software projects handle this?
>> We could also set up a Pledgie campaign, however, this also cuts off
>> 3% (or more) of the money.
>
> 97% of something is more than 100% of nothing.

Indeed.

What about setting up a whole bunch of lilypond crowdfunding
campaigns, one for each developer, and all of them under a `lilypond
umbrella'?  Announcements for `I'm working on feature XXX' could be
sent to a central list, and interested people could contribute money.
If a certain amount of money has been reached, the developer starts
with his stuff.

Note that there are two models of funding sites:

  . kickstarter.com (and clones):
  Within a certain amount of time, a certain amount of money must
  be collected.  If this goal hasn't been reached, the money is
  sent back to the donators.

  . pledgie.com (and clones):
  There's a time limit, but it is rather a soft one, and donations
  are not paid back.

I have no idea whether such an `umbrella' structure is possible at all
with the setup of current crowdfunding sites.

A special campaign to have financial support for attending conferences
would also fit in such scheme.


Werner

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Re: Bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 02:29:22PM +0100, Janek Warchoł wrote:
> 2012/1/25 Graham Percival :
> > Check your email archives for our discussion on 2011 Dec 2 for all
> > the reasons I think this is a bad idea.
> 
> Sorry, but i'm searching for 10 minutes and haven't found relevant
> thread.  Can you be more specific?

The title was
  [lilypond private] sponsorships for programming

It was sent to the email address that you have listed in this
email.  Hopefully it's in your archive mailbox, rather than being
deleted.

- Graham

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Re: Bounties

[David Kastrup]

Werner LEMBERG  writes:

> Nice suggestions, Mike!
>
>> 2) Create a PayPal account for said address with one and only one
>> person, the € czar, who has access to it.  This should be someone
>> responsible and respectable.
>
> Hmm.  This actually means that PayPal is involved two times, stripping
> of 2x3% or more...
>
> What about having two persons, one for US, and one for Europe so that
> a normal bank transfer can be done?  No idea whether this is better,
> however.
>
> Can someone do a survey how other free software projects handle this?
> We could also set up a Pledgie campaign, however, this also cuts off
> 3% (or more) of the money.

97% of something is more than 100% of nothing.

I do share Graham's concerns which have been previously hashed out in
private discussions: an official money channel for LilyPond is not
something easy to set up.  In the meantime, I have actually received a
request for my bank account data from one user and one developer just
right now, so there is some support that can be rallied.  However, it
seems sort of absurd if an active and dedicated developer pays another
developer for staying active and dedicated.  So while the developer base
is certainly a place where one _does_ find dedicated LilyPond friends,
in the long run I need to shift the financial responsibility to
dedicated LilyPond friends among the end users who find that money is by
far the best resource they can contribute for keeping up their end of
the project.

So while at the moment I can "provide" one money sink that makes, in my
not at all humble opinion, a good place to turn money into LilyPond
progress, it does not mean that it is the only one (after all, I am
working only on some parts of LilyPond), nor does it mean that this will
stay so in perpetuity.  And while currently the danger of acquiring a
noticeable _buffer_ does not really seem imminent, I would want to avoid
the situation where I have money on my hand I can't spend in good
conscience.  So I would attempt of using the next LilyPond report for
fishing for _personal_ LilyPond funds, trying to present the results of
the previous discussions about official channels and see what the
responses in turns of better ideas as well as actual donations are.

Once we get in the situation where I would tell prospective _personal_
_account_ donators that I already got myself covered, or where we find
that people are willing to provide money for LilyPond developments that
someone else would be better suited to take up, we might have to rethink
about putting something up that is less personal than "currently you can
support some LilyPond developments by supporting David".

I also would find it nice if we have, say, a developer saying that he
wants to hold a talk at some conference but it would unduly strain his
personal budget to do so, to be able to connect him to users willing to
sponsor such work.  Basically have a place where software users and
money users can meet.

But at the current point I don't see that we can reasonably set up a
_fund_ where the in- and outflow of money are dealt with in separation.
While it is a strength of the abstraction "money", it requires
additional administration and legal infrastructure.  We are too small
yet for that to make much sense, I think.  I should certainly love to be
proven wrong, though.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: Bounties

[Janek Warchoł]

2012/1/25 Graham Percival :
> Check your email archives for our discussion on 2011 Dec 2 for all
> the reasons I think this is a bad idea.

Sorry, but i'm searching for 10 minutes and haven't found relevant
thread.  Can you be more specific?

Janek

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Re: Bounties

[Werner LEMBERG]

Nice suggestions, Mike!

> 2) Create a PayPal account for said address with one and only one
> person, the € czar, who has access to it.  This should be someone
> responsible and respectable.

Hmm.  This actually means that PayPal is involved two times, stripping
of 2x3% or more...

What about having two persons, one for US, and one for Europe so that
a normal bank transfer can be done?  No idea whether this is better,
however.

Can someone do a survey how other free software projects handle this?
We could also set up a Pledgie campaign, however, this also cuts off
3% (or more) of the money.


Werner

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Re: Bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 03:38:21AM -0800, m...@apollinemike.com wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:24:40 +, Graham Percival wrote:
> >Check your email archives for our discussion on 2011 Dec 2 for all
> >the reasons I think this is a bad idea.
> 
> Given that several users have already expressed the desire to give
> money this way and at least one developer has expressed the desire
> to take money this way, it seems that the only thing missing is the
> clearinghouse through which the exchange happens.

You have not refuted /any/ of the concerns I gave against this
idea in that previous email.

I think we need to discuss this privately.

- Graham

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Re: Bounties

[mike]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:24:40 +, Graham Percival wrote:
On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 03:01:50AM -0800, m...@apollinemike.com 
wrote:

1)  Create an e-mail address "contrib...@lilypond.org" (this I can't
do - can someone please do this).


Can't do.


Seems simple, effective, and startable in the next two weeks.  I'm
sure it is not perfect, but LilyPond is not perfect, and it seems
better to start something and change it as need be than to not do
anything.


Check your email archives for our discussion on 2011 Dec 2 for all
the reasons I think this is a bad idea.

- Graham



Given that several users have already expressed the desire to give 
money this way and at least one developer has expressed the desire to 
take money this way, it seems that the only thing missing is the 
clearinghouse through which the exchange happens.  I'll propose a patch 
in a bit that does this: I think the best way to decide as a community 
if we want this is to read over a patch, see if we like it, and then 
either put it on a countdown or not.  In the meantime, I think people 
should take a gander at:


http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=fr
http://ardour.org/
http://musescore.org/fr

They're all music related projects that have a donation system 
implemented.  Especially with MuseScore, we could just ask them how if 
it has proven to be effective for them.


Cheers,
MS

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Re: Bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 03:01:50AM -0800, m...@apollinemike.com wrote:
> 1)  Create an e-mail address "contrib...@lilypond.org" (this I can't
> do - can someone please do this).

Can't do.

> Seems simple, effective, and startable in the next two weeks.  I'm
> sure it is not perfect, but LilyPond is not perfect, and it seems
> better to start something and change it as need be than to not do
> anything.

Check your email archives for our discussion on 2011 Dec 2 for all
the reasons I think this is a bad idea.

- Graham

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Re: Bounties

[mike]

Moving to devel:

I think this bounty slush fund needs to happen soon-ish - there's been 
two rounds of talking about it, which is great, but it will remain talk 
unless someone does something.  I also understand that David is in the 
position of not wanting to do a full court press for organizing the €€ 
thing because he wants to be earning some of it, which I respect.  So I 
am going to do something - if people have a problem with it, then speak 
up, but I'm throwing this out there as a solution.


1)  Create an e-mail address "contrib...@lilypond.org" (this I can't do 
- can someone please do this).
2)  Create a PayPal account for said address with one and only one 
person, the € czar, who has access to it.  This should be someone 
responsible and respectable .  In my life, I have drank, lied and 
listened to a lot of ABBA, so I am out, but there are several people on 
the list who seem like upstanding individuals who could fill this role.
3)  Propositions come in on the devel list from developers in the form 
of "I have project X and I would like Y€ from the slush fund to do it."  
This will then go up for a private vote (like patch review) where anyone 
who has git push access can send a vote email to the € czar.  If there 
are more yeas than nays, the person gets the € for doing thing X (in 
advance of doing it - it'll be a trust system).  The € czar has the 
final say over whether or not to approve the project in order to prevent 
abuse, and the € czar needs to agree to not be allowed to tap into this 
fund, lest she give up her role as € czar.


Seems simple, effective, and startable in the next two weeks.  I'm sure 
it is not perfect, but LilyPond is not perfect, and it seems better to 
start something and change it as need be than to not do anything.


Cheers,
MS

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Joseph,

> it seems there are a bunch of optimizations and improvements
> that would be needed to see Lilypond becoming a serious contender
> on mobile or low-power devices etc.

Agreed -- and I believe that should be a serious short-term objective for the 
community.

> I'm speaking purely from the experience of trying to compile
> Valentin's opera on my laptop. :-)

Even my not-so-gigantic pieces (20' quartet, 27' chamber opera) were unwieldy 
-- I'm definitely not looking forward to the compilation times for my upcoming 
large-scale projects (oratorio and puppet opera).

> one thing I would be interested in is the development of
> 'free/open scholarly urtext editions' -- think Project Gutenberg
> but for music, not just the kind of 'engrave the old Breitköpf
> edition' stuff that you see from random enthusiasts on IMSLP,
> but carefully-prepared expert-scholarship urtext editions
> with well defined editorial guidelines, etc. etc.

Sounds amazing, and definitely part of my Grand Scheme.

> Take the Neue Mozart Ausgabe as an example -- it's available to browse
> free online, but it's _ridiculous_ that this scholarly archive of
> Mozart's texts is still under proprietary lock and key in this day and
> age.  The scholarly and music-professional consequences of having a
> high-quality open archive that anyone can access and derive from are
> fairly profound.
> 
> So, if you can persuade Rice to take up that kind of challenge -- kind
> of 'O'Reilly for music publishing' -- you'll have done something rather
> marvellous, IMO.

Wish me luck!  =)
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[Joseph Wakeling]

On 06/21/2010 06:37 PM, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> However, for me personally -- i.e., how I will spend my assistance and 
> sponsorship time, money, and effort -- trying to make Lilypond a better 
> *composing* tool is a total non-issue, whereas fixing the innumerable 
> *engraving* problems remaining to be solved is everything.

I think that's a pretty good priority for Lilypond in general, actually.
 I mean, there are things that can be done, like enhanced MIDI
performance (dynamics, articulation, ...) that could help make Lilypond
a better tool for sketching out compositional ideas and producing demos
of pieces, but engraving is the key strength Lilypond has and it should
play to it.

I would step back from that slightly and say that say that what makes
Lilypond great is _engraving without cheating_ -- i.e. its source
notation is in general a precise representation of the musical content
(meaning as well as appearance).

Its use of a well-defined human-readable semantic markup is also a big
plus, particularly when it comes to archiving.

>> You'll be fine raising grant money as long as you make case studies of 
>> typesetting and theses.
> 
> That's probably an accurate assessment, at least in the immediate term. I 
> think the point about "non-serviced communities" (e.g., unsighted, less 
> affluent, etc.) is a good one, too. Platform options (i.e., emerging devices, 
> where FinSib likely won't go) will become important very soon. And so on.

True, but you have to be careful that the grant gets used to develop a
viable, supported long term solution to whatever you're trying to
achieve, not just something that permits the people involved to write
enough research articles to make themselves look good to the funding agency.

I'm not sure about emerging devices, or rather, it seems there are a
bunch of optimizations and improvements that would be needed to see
Lilypond becoming a serious contender on mobile or low-power devices
etc.  I'm speaking purely from the experience of trying to compile
Valentin's opera on my laptop. :-)

> Personally, I'm not trying to "sell Lilypond to universities", at least not 
> in the way that particular phrase suggests (i.e., convince them to replace 
> their current FinSib setup with Lilypond). I'm trying to make a case to a 
> well-funded university (Rice) with a proven track record in the development 
> and promotion of digital, open, on-demand publishing (Connexions) and a 
> fabulous music school (Shepherd School) that there might be a great way to 
> extend their publishing platform into the [essentially untapped] sphere of 
> print music, and simultaneously support the development of an open-source 
> application/community.

Agree about 'selling to universities' in that sense -- it's exactly what
is likely to get the « Dans le cul de ta mère! » kind of response that
Valentin received. :-P

Your connection with Rice sounds very interesting.  I don't know what
your exact proposal is, but one thing I would be interested in is the
development of 'free/open scholarly urtext editions' -- think Project
Gutenberg but for music, not just the kind of 'engrave the old Breitköpf
edition' stuff that you see from random enthusiasts on IMSLP, but
carefully-prepared expert-scholarship urtext editions with well defined
editorial guidelines, etc. etc.

Take the Neue Mozart Ausgabe as an example -- it's available to browse
free online, but it's _ridiculous_ that this scholarly archive of
Mozart's texts is still under proprietary lock and key in this day and
age.  The scholarly and music-professional consequences of having a
high-quality open archive that anyone can access and derive from are
fairly profound.

So, if you can persuade Rice to take up that kind of challenge -- kind
of 'O'Reilly for music publishing' -- you'll have done something rather
marvellous, IMO.

Best wishes,

-- Joe

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi David,

> But when trying to hook people on a large scale on Lilypond, you'll find
> that there is a reason Lilypond was your tool of choice, and not theirs.

Of course. So the point is simply, how much resource do/can we [the community] 
spend attempting to lure "the masses"? My guess is, the "sweet spot" -- where a 
statistically significant group of people will consider Lilypond their "tool of 
choice", over FinSibEtc -- is far in excess of the community's capacity in the 
next 3-5 years.

> preview-latex has changed my needs for pen and paper for the creation of
> quite a bit of mathematical content.  At some point of time, a tool
> might change your workflow.

TeXShop works like a charm for me.

> It is not rare for him to produce papers with 1000+ formulae.

Sounds like my last "sum of consecutive integer powers" paper.  =)

> Emacs basically is an editing platform.  If you can't warm to its
> generic feature set, for a particular application space there might
> exist modes and tools that make a decisive difference in usability.

True.
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan  writes:

> Hi David,
>
>>> As for 'best tool for the job', what job are you referring to?  Are
>>> you sure it is the job that everyone else is trying to do?
>> 
>> Getting the music from your head to paper.
>
> Not that my opinion matters here, but...  :)
>
> That is the *least* important part of Lilypond for me -- in fact, I
> couldn't care any less about it, from the point of view of my usage.

But when trying to hook people on a large scale on Lilypond, you'll find
that there is a reason Lilypond was your tool of choice, and not theirs.

> I know this is not the way everyone uses Lilypond, and I love
> open-source software precisely for the reason that everyone has an
> equal kick at the can, even if it means that "too many" resources are
> going to something I don't (and likely won't ever) need. The more
> popular Lilypond is, the better chance I probably have of getting my
> Lilypond needs fulfilled. However, for me personally -- i.e., how I
> will spend my assistance and sponsorship time, money, and effort --
> trying to make Lilypond a better *composing* tool is a total
> non-issue, whereas fixing the innumerable *engraving* problems
> remaining to be solved is everything.

preview-latex has changed my needs for pen and paper for the creation of
quite a bit of mathematical content.  At some point of time, a tool
might change your workflow.

Most really tough work still happens on paper for me.  But good tools
can shift the easier work.

>> Well, I hate doing serious work outside of Emacs.
>
> I don't like Emacs: I've tried it for a number of things -- Lilypond,
> LaTeX (number theory papers), etc. -- and found that it got in my way
> constantly. Different strokes...

My father is 76, and a theoretical physicist.  preview-latex made Emacs
his preferred editor.  It is not rare for him to produce papers with
1000+ formulae.

Emacs basically is an editing platform.  If you can't warm to its
generic feature set, for a particular application space there might
exist modes and tools that make a decisive difference in usability.

-- 
David Kastrup

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi David,

>> As for 'best tool for the job', what job are you referring to?  Are
>> you sure it is the job that everyone else is trying to do?
> 
> Getting the music from your head to paper.

Not that my opinion matters here, but...  :)

That is the *least* important part of Lilypond for me -- in fact, I couldn't 
care any less about it, from the point of view of my usage.

This is the classic "composer" versus "engraver" debate that has come up 
several times on the lists. I literally *never* use Lilypond to generate 
compositional material: I compose strictly with paper and pen[cil] -- at the 
piano and away from the computer -- and *only then* use Lilypond to engrave the 
final score(s). The closest I come to using Lilypond to "get music from my head 
to paper" is when I have to orchestrate a short score [written on manuscript] 
under an extreme time crunch; then, and only then, it is sometimes preferable 
[read: necessary] to skip the "intermediate step" of a full-score manuscript.

I know this is not the way everyone uses Lilypond, and I love open-source 
software precisely for the reason that everyone has an equal kick at the can, 
even if it means that "too many" resources are going to something I don't (and 
likely won't ever) need. The more popular Lilypond is, the better chance I 
probably have of getting my Lilypond needs fulfilled. However, for me 
personally -- i.e., how I will spend my assistance and sponsorship time, money, 
and effort -- trying to make Lilypond a better *composing* tool is a total 
non-issue, whereas fixing the innumerable *engraving* problems remaining to be 
solved is everything.

> Well, I hate doing serious work outside of Emacs.

I don't like Emacs: I've tried it for a number of things -- Lilypond, LaTeX 
(number theory papers), etc. -- and found that it got in my way constantly. 
Different strokes...

> You'll be fine raising grant money as long as you make case studies of 
> typesetting and theses.

That's probably an accurate assessment, at least in the immediate term. I think 
the point about "non-serviced communities" (e.g., unsighted, less affluent, 
etc.) is a good one, too. Platform options (i.e., emerging devices, where 
FinSib likely won't go) will become important very soon. And so on.

> But that's the whole thing: you won't be able to sell Lilypond to 
> universities.

Personally, I'm not trying to "sell Lilypond to universities", at least not in 
the way that particular phrase suggests (i.e., convince them to replace their 
current FinSib setup with Lilypond). I'm trying to make a case to a well-funded 
university (Rice) with a proven track record in the development and promotion 
of digital, open, on-demand publishing (Connexions) and a fabulous music school 
(Shepherd School) that there might be a great way to extend their publishing 
platform into the [essentially untapped] sphere of print music, and 
simultaneously support the development of an open-source application/community.

Cheers,
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Joseph Wakeling  writes:

> On 06/21/2010 01:46 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> You wish.  It is a problem when Lilypond is the best tool for the job
>> and/or the cheapest.
>
> 'Cheapest' is IMO nowhere near as relevant as many people think,
> especially when it relates to organizations like publishers or
> universities that have large budgets anyway.

Yes.  I got distracted into "user complaints".

> As for 'best tool for the job', what job are you referring to?  Are
> you sure it is the job that everyone else is trying to do?

Getting the music from your head to paper.

>> Well, by now everybody and his dog writes diatribes how Stallman and
>> the Free Software Foundation and free software are on the road to
>> total failure and need to make themselves indistinguishable from
>> those systems for which they provide alternatives.
>
> Not me.  I'm with Stallman in the struggle for software freedom, and
> find myself amazed by how often people misrepresent and misunderstand
> what he and the FSF are on about.

In particular since he is saying the same things now as 30 years ago.
It's just that GNU is harder to ignore nowadays.

> Note that I did list ideological/philosophical reasons as one of the
> principal ways to get the self-motivation to learn to use Lilypond.
> (It worked for me.)

Well, I hate doing serious work outside of Emacs.  Is that
ideological/philosophical?

> Yea, but right now we're not talking about a popularity contest.  It
> would be very nice if universities and publishers all enthusiastically
> took up the use of Lilypond, but what we're talking about now is
> something much simpler -- raising money to dedicate to Lilypond
> development and project sustainability.

You'll be fine raising grant money as long as you make case studies of
typesetting and theses.  Once you move to general use, you'll need to
address "end users" (TM).

>> One way of evading the question is to make a compellingly good user
>> interface on Emacs (which then runs everywhere), but that's not
>> exactly a small task to do.  And there are people who would balk at
>> "compellingly good" in the same sentence with "Emacs".
>
> Despite the power of Emacs it doesn't make sense to me to use it as
> the dedicated platform.  Most users of Lilypond, especially beginners,
> don't need the possibilities it offers, and it's difficult to 'get'
> Emacs if you do not have a need for more than simple text editing.

That's the task of "compellingly good".  If it integrates smoothly
enough, with its own smooth major mode, consistent key bindings, and
breathtaking functionality, you need not mention that the underlying
platform is named "Emacs".  No, we are not there.  And no, I don't have
a road map to there.

> If I were aiming for an effective cross-platform editing environment
> for Lilypond, I would go for Frescobaldi as the leading candidate --
> it has a nice, friendly interface, good functionality, and Qt/KDE
> based tools make for good long term candidates for cross-platform
> applications.

You'll lose the GNOME users.  But maybe just those that would scorn a
GUI anyway.

But that's the whole thing: you won't be able to sell Lilypond to
universities.  But you might be able to sell Frescobaldi or something
like it, and people will not ask just what it uses internally.

Problem is that Frescobaldi's way more limited than Lilypond, and likely
has its own file formats, meaning that you can't exchange work with
"real" Lilypond users.  [Looking at its website].  Ok, I'm wrong about
that.  But that means that it exposes the user to "programming".  Namely
Lilypond.  I was imagining it to be something like LyX
http://www.lyx.org> in relation to LaTeX.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: bounties

[Joseph Wakeling]

On 06/21/2010 01:46 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
> You wish.  It is a problem when Lilypond is the best tool for the job
> and/or the cheapest.

'Cheapest' is IMO nowhere near as relevant as many people think,
especially when it relates to organizations like publishers or
universities that have large budgets anyway.

As for 'best tool for the job', what job are you referring to?  Are you
sure it is the job that everyone else is trying to do?

> Well, by now everybody and his dog writes diatribes how Stallman and the
> Free Software Foundation and free software are on the road to total
> failure and need to make themselves indistinguishable from those systems
> for which they provide alternatives.

Not me.  I'm with Stallman in the struggle for software freedom, and
find myself amazed by how often people misrepresent and misunderstand
what he and the FSF are on about.

Note that I did list ideological/philosophical reasons as one of the
principal ways to get the self-motivation to learn to use Lilypond.  (It
worked for me.)

> It takes a Stallman to keep course even when in the middle of a
> popularity shouting contest.

Yea, but right now we're not talking about a popularity contest.  It
would be very nice if universities and publishers all enthusiastically
took up the use of Lilypond, but what we're talking about now is
something much simpler -- raising money to dedicate to Lilypond
development and project sustainability.

> For each given platform.  Separately.  Sounds like employment for a
> number of platform-localized frogs.

Well, you have 3 platforms you need to address -- Windows, Mac and
'other UNIX' (GNU+LINUX/BSD/OpenSolaris/.), the commonalities and
tech-savvy of the latter group being enough that you can group them
together.  Plus most of a 'quick start' would be platform-independent.
All you need is an instruction along the lines of, 'Edit text file
[suggest platform-specific editors], open up command line [with
platform-specific instructions], run Lilypond from the command line.

Then 'click here for more info', taking you to the online or locally
installed documentation.

> One way of evading the question is to make a compellingly good user
> interface on Emacs (which then runs everywhere), but that's not exactly
> a small task to do.  And there are people who would balk at
> "compellingly good" in the same sentence with "Emacs".

Despite the power of Emacs it doesn't make sense to me to use it as the
dedicated platform.  Most users of Lilypond, especially beginners, don't
need the possibilities it offers, and it's difficult to 'get' Emacs if
you do not have a need for more than simple text editing.

If I were aiming for an effective cross-platform editing environment for
Lilypond, I would go for Frescobaldi as the leading candidate -- it has
a nice, friendly interface, good functionality, and Qt/KDE based tools
make for good long term candidates for cross-platform applications.

Best wishes,

-- Joe

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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Joseph Wakeling  writes:

> On 06/20/2010 06:10 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> People want a _solution_ to their problem, not new problems they never
>> thought about and which are not actually in their personal problem
>> space.
>
> That's true, but it only shows that Lilypond isn't yet capable of
> operating as a general-purpose best solution.  That's only a problem
> if that's what Lilypond wants to _be_, or more precisely, what
> Lilypond tries to sell itself as.  ('Wants to be' is fine as long as
> you have a plan to get there and don't sell yourself as such
> prematurely...)

You wish.  It is a problem when Lilypond is the best tool for the job
and/or the cheapest.

> It's a bit like GNU/Linux a few years ago, and to an extent even now
> -- it wasn't possible to market it as a general-purpose operating
> system suitable for all, because learning to use it involved an
> expenditure of effort that only made sense if you had a deliberate
> motivation.  That might be ideological/philosophical, it might be the
> opportunity for hacking and customization, it might be that it
> provides better for your particular technical needs, but whatever it
> was, you _needed_ that self-motivation.

Well, by now everybody and his dog writes diatribes how Stallman and the
Free Software Foundation and free software are on the road to total
failure and need to make themselves indistinguishable from those systems
for which they provide alternatives.

It takes a Stallman to keep course even when in the middle of a
popularity shouting contest.

If your tool becomes superior not because of its principles and
philosophies, but just because it's the best way to arrive at the end
result, everybody will tell you that the way you arrive at the end
result is wrong and needs replacement.

Even if the end result would not have been reached by other means.

>> You can't stop at selling Lilypond to somebody without having an
>> answer to "how do I start this thing"?  How many people are
>> complaining that they double-click on the Lilypond icon and nothing
>> happens?
>
> Hmmm ... so why not start by having the icon open a 'Quickstart' help
> page that explains how to use Lilypond on the platform in question?
> Trivial to implement, no?

For each given platform.  Separately.  Sounds like employment for a
number of platform-localized frogs.

One way of evading the question is to make a compellingly good user
interface on Emacs (which then runs everywhere), but that's not exactly
a small task to do.  And there are people who would balk at
"compellingly good" in the same sentence with "Emacs".

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: bounties

[Joseph Wakeling]

On 06/20/2010 06:10 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
> People want a _solution_ to their problem, not new problems they never
> thought about and which are not actually in their personal problem
> space.

That's true, but it only shows that Lilypond isn't yet capable of
operating as a general-purpose best solution.  That's only a problem if
that's what Lilypond wants to _be_, or more precisely, what Lilypond
tries to sell itself as.  ('Wants to be' is fine as long as you have a
plan to get there and don't sell yourself as such prematurely...)

It's a bit like GNU/Linux a few years ago, and to an extent even now --
it wasn't possible to market it as a general-purpose operating system
suitable for all, because learning to use it involved an expenditure of
effort that only made sense if you had a deliberate motivation.  That
might be ideological/philosophical, it might be the opportunity for
hacking and customization, it might be that it provides better for your
particular technical needs, but whatever it was, you _needed_ that
self-motivation.

Lilypond's situation is almost exactly parallel, and like GNU/Linux, it
doesn't mean that you can't sell it -- it means you have to target your
sales pitch at the people in whom you can create that self-motivation.
Or rather, you have to target cases where the problem of learning to use
Lilypond is small compared to the benefit of having it.

The first such pitch can obviously be at those of us who already _have_
the motivation and are involved -- as Valentin is doing -- to create a
Lilypond 'subscription' model.  I'd go further than that and create
classes of sponsorship, the most prominent of which come with very overt
display (logos on the webpage and in documentation, etc.).  'Lilypond,
sponsored by ...' etc. etc.  Even if no one (for now) takes up the
higher classes of sponsorship, I think there are lots of us who would
happily offer regular monthly donations to Lilypond if there was a
well-defined funding (and spending) structure.

(I would suggest splitting any such initial funds between development
work and outreach -- spend some of the money on getting new features
implemented and some of it on pursuing a wider range of funding sources.
 Someone mentioned the hassle of writing grants and tracking
deliverables and project bureaucracy, but once you've _got_ a grant you
can and should dedicate part of that money towards such admin work.)

Above and beyond that, look at special or specialist needs that Lilypond
can fulfil and even more, at special or specialist needs where _further
development_ can fulfil them -- that gives an obvious reason to people
to fund Lilypond development.

> You can't stop at selling Lilypond to somebody without having an
> answer to "how do I start this thing"?  How many people are complaining
> that they double-click on the Lilypond icon and nothing happens?

Hmmm ... so why not start by having the icon open a 'Quickstart' help
page that explains how to use Lilypond on the platform in question?
Trivial to implement, no?

One other thing: yesterday a developer colleague of mine showed me the
following page,
http://tryhaskell.org/

... which he'd been inspired to implement by the equivalent 'Try Ruby'
page.  (There are now apparently a bunch of 'Try X' sites out there.)

Lilypond isn't exactly equivalent, since AFAICS it can't meaningfully be
run in any kind of 'scripting mode', but there is surely scope for some
kind of online interactive Lilypond environment (most likely a primitive
online editor + output display + tutorial).

I'll try and keep this in mind as a potential pet project (I don't have
the skill, but together he and I probably do).  There is no way we can
put time towards it in the immediate future, since we have strong
immediate priorities for the projects of our employer, but maybe a few
months down the line something can be done ...

Best wishes,

-- Joe

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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival  writes:

> On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 5:10 PM, David Kastrup  wrote:
>> People try to be editorially neutral, and not suggest any choice of
>> religion like vi, Emacs, whatever.
>
> http://lilypond.org/website/easier-editing.html
>
> "As a general rule, if you are not already familiar with Emacs or Vim,
> then you would probably prefer to use a different editor for writing
> LilyPond input files."
>
> Admittedly, we don't come out and say "Use lilypondtool" vs. "Use
> Frescobaldi", but I think that page is basically what you're hinting
> at.

Not really.  To come back to my example, you say that there _are_ Midi
master controllers that might be more suitable to work with the great
Midi expander the musician is going to be playing than other Midi master
controllers.

You still end up having to teach the "main" tool and additional
completely separate tools with completely separate function that merely
interface into your "main" tool.

"I want to compose, not edit".  Really, focused batch tools have an
acceptance problem that results in people starting out _helpless_.  You
can work a beginning composer through all five or eight Lilypond
manuals, and he'll still not know what he has to do at his computer to
get out a score with a single note in it.

He'll know more or less what his "input" would look like, but not how to
get it into his computer.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 5:10 PM, David Kastrup  wrote:
> People try to be editorially neutral, and not suggest any choice of
> religion like vi, Emacs, whatever.

http://lilypond.org/website/easier-editing.html

"As a general rule, if you are not already familiar with Emacs or Vim,
then you would probably prefer to use a different editor for writing
LilyPond input files."

Admittedly, we don't come out and say "Use lilypondtool" vs. "Use
Frescobaldi", but I think that page is basically what you're hinting
at.


"When will the new website go live?": when there's no Critical items
remaining about the website.  This could be as soon as 2 hours after I
start working on the website.  But I'm not going to do that until the
Bug Squad is working well, and when there's no other big disasters
blowing up at the moment.
Best-case scenario: next weekend.  More realistic: two weeks.  My
pessimistic opinion: mid-August.

Cheers,
- Graham

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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Joseph Wakeling  writes:

> On 06/19/2010 07:50 PM, Valentin Villenave wrote:
>> Ditto here. I have contacted dozens of French universities, music
>> schools, government-funded music structures and whatnot. Everytime I
>> got an answer, the answer was: "Fuck off, we already have Finale".
>> 
>> Or something like that.
>
> What were the nature of the proposals or enquiries you made?
>
> I'm asking because of my own experience, now, working for an
> organization where the leadership is quite
> traditional-business-oriented, and trying to steer their thinking in
> more open ways.

Well, I have to state quite clearly that one of the largest problems
Lilypond faces is usability.

Selling Lilypond to an aspiring music typesetter is like selling a Midi
expander to an aspiring musician.

"Here is everything you need to create beautiful music.  Come here
tomorrow morning with your favorite Midi Master control device, we have
everything you need to get music from that." is not how you attract
aspiring musicians.  "Come here tomorrow morning with your favorite text
editor, we have everything you need to get typeset music from that." is
in the same book.

People want a _solution_ to their problem, not new problems they never
thought about and which are not actually in their personal problem
space.  You can't stop at selling Lilypond to somebody without having an
answer to "how do I start this thing"?  How many people are complaining
that they double-click on the Lilypond icon and nothing happens?

People try to be editorially neutral, and not suggest any choice of
religion like vi, Emacs, whatever.  That's nice for the faithful, but in
the real world, the editor wars are not just over, but have not left an
impact.  People are editor agnostic, worse editor ignorant.  You tell
them to use an editor and they'll do.  Even if it is vi.  Actually, some
will be conspiring behind your back to convince others that things could
be so much nicer if they took things into their own hands, but with
tepid success.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: bounties

[Joseph Wakeling]

On 06/19/2010 07:50 PM, Valentin Villenave wrote:
> Ditto here. I have contacted dozens of French universities, music
> schools, government-funded music structures and whatnot. Everytime I
> got an answer, the answer was: "Fuck off, we already have Finale".
> 
> Or something like that.

What were the nature of the proposals or enquiries you made?

I'm asking because of my own experience, now, working for an
organization where the leadership is quite
traditional-business-oriented, and trying to steer their thinking in
more open ways.

What's clear is that their attitude is very much along the lines of,
'There are lots of different models/tools you could adopt, but these
ones have clear and proven track record of success.  So you have to
prove to us that your alternative is viable and sustainable.'

Returning to the music institutions, Finale/Sibelius work for them, _and
the issue is not the money_, even on a student level.  Music students
will pay tens of thousands of euros for instruments -- €500 for a
software licence, and €100 a year for an upgrade (if you really want to)
is a piss in the park by comparison.

The issue is also not the freedom, because it's not such a big deal in
most cases to be able to read past files or hack the software.  Once
you've got a PDF of a composition your work is done, and it's common for
music to be re-engraved from scratch.

It's not even the beauty of results, because -- we see this on a regular
basis -- the Finale- or Sibelius-produced editions are _good enough for
purpose_.  With publishers at least, the norm seems to be to use the
music engraving software to produce the basic framework and then further
edit the output postscript in some vector graphics tool where necessary.
 It really is about producing final graphical output.

They won't even care if Lilypond offers them something they don't get
from Finale/Sibelius, because -- well -- you guys are doing this anyway
and give it away for free. :-P

What they _will_ care about is if you can give them a concrete plan
along the lines of, 'This is something that you care about that you
don't have now, or don't have easily, and here is how we can provide it,
and this is how much money it will cost.'

You have to make it very clear to them, because although the people
concerned may be very nice and talented and able in the general scheme
of things, where software is concerned they generally have the level of
understanding of the pointy-haired boss.  Or else they have a
pointy-haired technology boss to tell them what to think. :-)

(Mind you: that's European and US colleges.  I'd be curious to see if
you might have more luck going to South American or Asian or African
institutions, who might appreciate the budgetary implications of being
able to secure a long-term reliably supported notation solution for a
fraction of the cost of Finale/Sibelius licenses.  To say nothing of the
fact that it fits with the more communally-inclined cultural innovations
that are taking place in these countries.  Try taking the message to
Brazil with their increasing enthusiasm for copyleft [Gilberto Gil as
culture minister], try taking it to Venezuela with reference to Il
Sistiema, try wedding it to projects built on top of the 'One Laptop Per
Child' scheme.)

Examples of things that could get people's attention:

-- Lilypond as a tool for disabled (notably, blind) access to music
   notation software.  Not just blind music students like our own
   Hui Haipeng -- as a tool for disabled outreach projects.  You'd
   have to take account of the fact that while Finale and Sibelius
   aren't so helpful to a blind person from a visual point of view,
   they DO offer valuable support in their ease of entering music
   by playing on the keyboard.

-- Lilypond as a tool for 3rd-world or poor country outreach,
   prison outreach (it happens!), educational outreach to deprived
   regions of their own country.

-- Support for community outreach projects (bearing in mind that
   music students and even schools can probably deal with the costs
   of software licenses, but it lowers the point of entry and long-
   term sustainability of wider community participation; think of
   the way that community and church choirs already use Lilypond...)

-- Support for niche notational needs not well supported by Finale
   or Sibelius, such as early music or extreme contemporary music,
   algorithmically-created music, etc.

-- Support for non-Western musics.

Bear in mind that one GREAT way to unlock the coffers of institutions is
to provide them with something where, by spending this money, they can
do something that makes them look good in terms of the public arts
spending aims of the day. :-)

Example of these priorities in terms of questions a friend of mine was
asked to address when applying to have her work displayed in a music
technology exhibition:

   'How can new technology build local

Re: bounties

[Valentin Villenave]

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 3:02 AM, Kieren MacMillan
 wrote:
> An excellent idea... and I don't only say that because I'd already set 
> something like that in motion.  ;)
> I've contacted my alma mater and have initiated just such a conversation -- 
> will report back as things progress.

Ditto here. I have contacted dozens of French universities, music
schools, government-funded music structures and whatnot. Everytime I
got an answer, the answer was: "Fuck off, we already have Finale".

Or something like that.

Cheers,
Valentin

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Joe,

> An alternative would be to go directly to the institutions that have an
> interest in notation software -- the (many) music colleges.  Most of
> these have large numbers of computers with either or both of Finale and
> Sibelius installed (to say nothing of other music software), and if I
> recall right, that means a fairly large payout _per computer_.
> 
> Take a message to multiple music colleges, demonstrate Lilypond's
> coolest features, emphasise the fact that it is and always will be free
> both as in beer and freedom, the cool features, and then ask for
> development support on the order of the cost of 3 Sibelius desktop licenses.
> 
> Multiply that out across multiple institutions across the whole of
> Europe and it could add up to a fairly substantial amount of money.

An excellent idea... and I don't only say that because I'd already set 
something like that in motion.  ;)
I've contacted my alma mater and have initiated just such a conversation -- 
will report back as things progress.

Best regards,
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[Joseph Wakeling]

On 06/15/2010 09:19 PM, Graham Percival wrote:
> One idea I've toyed with is seeking a grant to work on lilypond.
> Various governments and agencies give research grants; I'm pretty
> certain that we could get a grant to improve medieval chant
> notation or contemporary non-Western scales or whatnot.  However,
> this would probably require
> - a bunch of grant applications
> - collaborating with some musicologists (i.e. a medieval chant
>   expert, or John Cage scholar, or whatever)
> - overhead of writing reports about deliverables, giving
>   presentations to people, etc.
> - etc.
> In the process of doing the specialized notation, the developer
> might fix a few "normal" bugs as well.

An alternative would be to go directly to the institutions that have an
interest in notation software -- the (many) music colleges.  Most of
these have large numbers of computers with either or both of Finale and
Sibelius installed (to say nothing of other music software), and if I
recall right, that means a fairly large payout _per computer_.

Take a message to multiple music colleges, demonstrate Lilypond's
coolest features, emphasise the fact that it is and always will be free
both as in beer and freedom, the cool features, and then ask for
development support on the order of the cost of 3 Sibelius desktop licenses.

Multiply that out across multiple institutions across the whole of
Europe and it could add up to a fairly substantial amount of money.

Best wishes,

-- Joe

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Re: bounties

[Xavier Scheuer]

2010/6/17 Valentin Villenave :

> Absolutely. That's why I've always said that we should have something
> like a "bounty thermometer" (such as the one they use for Blender's
> open movies IIRC, or http://haikuware.com/bounties/ as well).

Agree.
At this time there is nothing on the official LilyPond website that say
"You like using LilyPond, support it!  You can donate to help improving
the development".
A good "nice-looking" thermometer could be IMO quite efficient if it is
visible enough to "lambda" users.


>  - step 1, we establish a public list of "most wanted" features or
> bugfixes, and developers who could be willing to work on these
> estimate the amount of time (i.e. money) required to address each one
> of these;

Totally agree.
This list of "most wanted" features would be very helpful to _really_
understand what are the most annoying things/lacks in LilyPond
*everyday usage* (i.e. "lambda" users).

There is sometimes a "gap" between user priorities and devel ones...

Right now it is already more or less possible to have a basic idea of
"most wanted" features (or "most annoying" bugs) in sorting issues by
"Stars".
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/list?can=1&q=&sort=-stars&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Priority%20Stars%20Owner%20Summary

But it is IMO a very limited system since

  a. "lambda" users do not use the bug tracker;
  b. if they have had a look at it they wouldn't know they can "star"
 the issue they want to be solved;
  c. you need a Google account to use the tracker (which can be really
 _painful_).


> However, if Han-Wen's LilyPond-design experiment has to teach us
> something, it's that considering this only from a development
> perspective is not enough. Therefore, I do believe that we should
> *also* consider having "LilyPonding" branch, for newbies, musicians,
> composers, teachers, who sometimes need to have a large score typeset
> quickly but don't have enough skills or time or patience to typeset it
> on their own. Sort of a "rent-a-LilyPonder" service :-)
> Advanced users who could handle this type of jobs would get paid
> (obviously), but a part of the money could also go to development
> funding.

Very nice idea too.
That could be good for users who do not want to involve themselves in
LilyPond "development" (including doc/bug work) but who would want to
support LilyPond development in doing what they like: typesetting music
(even for other people).  :-)


> (Full disclosure: I have actually founded my own small one-person
> company to offer LilyPond-related services, such as publishing,
> training, composition, arrangement, LilyPonding of sorts, etc. And
> AFAIK, as of today there are at least half a dozen other
> companies/small-businesses like mine.)

Congratulations and good luck.

Cheers,
Xavier

--
Xavier Scheuer 

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Re: bounties

[Valentin Villenave]

On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Kieren MacMillan
 wrote:
> Ok, but I have identified at least three bounties (of my own) that 
> weren't/aren't tagged or tracked... so clearly it is already too much work, 
> right?

Please give the bug squad a ping when this happens. Even though our
response-time is at its lowest, we'll make sure your pledge isn't
forgotten forever.

Cheers,
Valentin

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Graham,

> - we haven't seen much interest from developers in responding to
>  pledges.  This might change.
> - we haven't seen much interest from users in *making* pledges.
>  This might change, especially if we start advertising it, but
>  more especially if developers start chasing bounties.
> 
> At the moment, we might as well continue to add the tag to items
> in the issue tracker as appropriate.  I mean, if we get so many
> pledges that managing them by tagging issues becomes too much
> work... well, I'd say that this would be a *fantastic* problem to
> have.  :)

Ok, but I have identified at least three bounties (of my own) that 
weren't/aren't tagged or tracked... so clearly it is already too much work, 
right?

Cheers,
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 06:08:06PM -0400, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hey bounty hunters,
> 
> > We should certainly extend and emphasize the bounty system.
> 
> Is there any resistance (philosophically) to using something like Kickstarter 
> to get/track pledges?

I don't see the point of dragging in more infrastructure.

- we haven't seen much interest from developers in responding to
  pledges.  This might change.
- we haven't seen much interest from users in *making* pledges.
  This might change, especially if we start advertising it, but
  more especially if developers start chasing bounties.

At the moment, we might as well continue to add the tag to items
in the issue tracker as appropriate.  I mean, if we get so many
pledges that managing them by tagging issues becomes too much
work... well, I'd say that this would be a *fantastic* problem to
have.  :)

Cheers,
- Graham

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hey bounty hunters,

> We should certainly extend and emphasize the bounty system.

Is there any resistance (philosophically) to using something like Kickstarter 
to get/track pledges?

Just a thought...
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[Valentin Villenave]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 4:51 PM, Graham Percival
 wrote:
> There's a bunch of "ease-of-use" items that have a standard "50 euro
> or double an existing bounty" from Valentin.  Since I'm pretty certain
> he's in the worst financial situation of any lilypond developer, I
> personally would take this with a grain of salt.

Your guess may (or may not) be accurate; when I wrote that I certainly
wasn't expecting to ever have to double a €2000 fee :-)

Whilst giving away €50 is certainly not something I can afford several
times a week, I already donated that kind of money on several
occasions (I once even paid a LilyPond developer ten times that amount
for one single feature). Some developers prefer us to donate to
charities instead, and that's fine too -- as long as the LilyPond
project keeps moving forward on a big-picture level.

> There's a US$300 bounty for musicxml export, which is extremely low
> given the work involved.
>
> There's a EUR 400 bounty from Francisco and Valentin for a "better"
> editor for windows to replace lilypad.  It's not quite clear what
> people want to see that lilypondtool / Frescobaldi don't offer (other
> than "comes with GUB").  I'd be cautious about this offer as well,
> since it's not at all clear what they want, nor what we would be
> willing to accept in GUB.

That would probably be a cross-platform lightweight editor (I'd say, a
500Ko binary when statically compiled), probably based on Scintilla
and guile-gtk. It may even include a lightweight PDF-viewing component
based on Ghostscript (only if it doesn't add dependencies).
The whole point is to make it a part of the standard GUB LilyPond
distribution eventually, please do not rebut this just yet :-)
See http://wiki.lilynet.net/index.php/LilyPond_GUI

We should certainly extend and emphasize the bounty system. Some of
us, particularly in France, are working on this. Hopefully we'll have
good news in a few months.

Cheers,
Valentin.

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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival  writes:

> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 06:55:19PM +0200, Alexander Kobel wrote:
>> Oh, and of course I know that this amount "is extremely low given the  
>> work involved", as Graham stated, but ... well - it's better than  
>> nothing.
>
> Well, some people (not me) might not agree -- I mean, if something
> would take you 20 hours, and somebody offers $10 and a piece of
> bubble gum, it's not very encouraging.  If ten people offered the
> same thing, it would add up, of course.  But I've heard from some
> developers that taking a bounty isn't worth the trouble of setting
> up a paypal account.
>
> *shrug*
>
> I'd be happy to take a bounty if anybody offered them in areas I
> work on.

That's not entirely true.  If you get offered a bounty, you tend to
measure your work according to the amount paid, and then choose that you
have better things to do like waste 10 hours on something that's only
worth $30.  Like wasting 20 hours on something for which you don't get
any pay at all.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: bounties

[Alexander Kobel]

On 2010-05-19 19:08, Graham Percival wrote:

I mean, if something
would take you 20 hours, and somebody offers $10 and a piece of
bubble gum, it's not very encouraging.  If ten people offered the
same thing, it would add up, of course.


True.  And that's how we all like to see it, right?  Alas, the joy of 
idealism...



But I've heard from some
developers that taking a bounty isn't worth the trouble of setting
up a paypal account.


Depends on your usual day business, I guess, and whether you're paid 
what you're worth.  If not so, the 300 $ you mentioned is quite a bunch 
of money, too...



AFAIK (and hope), none of you guys codes in Lily for his living, but at
least there may be a free dinner sometimes to soothe the Significant
Other...

[...]
An alternative to donating it to the FSF (or whatever charity you
like) would be for the developer to offer a bounty on something
that affects *them* -- either something they want to use for their
own lilypond compositions, or something they want for their own
*development* work (like the source code indentation program or
new build system).


Of course that's entirely up to the developer of some patch.  I'd be 
fine with either option.



Cheers,
Alexander

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Re: bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 06:55:19PM +0200, Alexander Kobel wrote:
> Oh, and of course I know that this amount "is extremely low given the  
> work involved", as Graham stated, but ... well - it's better than  
> nothing.

Well, some people (not me) might not agree -- I mean, if something
would take you 20 hours, and somebody offers $10 and a piece of
bubble gum, it's not very encouraging.  If ten people offered the
same thing, it would add up, of course.  But I've heard from some
developers that taking a bounty isn't worth the trouble of setting
up a paypal account.

*shrug*

I'd be happy to take a bounty if anybody offered them in areas I
work on.

> AFAIK (and hope), none of you guys codes in Lily for his living, but at  
> least there may be a free dinner sometimes to soothe the Significant  
> Other...

Well, that requires converting the paypal balance into actual
money, which requires giving paypal more financial information
than I feel comfortable doing.

An alternative to donating it to the FSF (or whatever charity you
like) would be for the developer to offer a bounty on something
that affects *them* -- either something they want to use for their
own lilypond compositions, or something they want for their own
*development* work (like the source code indentation program or
new build system).

Cheers,
- Graham

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Re: bounties

[Alexander Kobel]

On 2010-05-19 17:00, Kieren MacMillan wrote:

Hi Graham,

There are also other sponsorship offers (by me, which I can confirm are still "open") 
which don't seem to be in the Google code "bounty" pile: [...]



Plus, I seem to recall at least two other people willing to chip in for the 
bounties on break-alignment with MetronomeMarks, and a real 
piano-with-centred-dynamics fix.
[Can't find the links right now.]


Yup, here I am for the piano-centered dynamics - same link, 50 EUR.  Not 
sure if there's anybody else, though.

And of course my offer still holds.

Oh, and of course I know that this amount "is extremely low given the 
work involved", as Graham stated, but ... well - it's better than 
nothing.  Even more so when Joe provides a perfect example, saying that 
"he's happy to accept bribes, but they won't drastically affect his TODO 
list priorities, just because his main constraint on Lilypond work is 
time rather than money."
AFAIK (and hope), none of you guys codes in Lily for his living, but at 
least there may be a free dinner sometimes to soothe the Significant 
Other...



Cheers,
Alexander

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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi David,

> Who gets the bounty?  Developer or committer?

Developer. From the person who wants the fix.
For example, I paid Han-Wen to program the lyricMelismaAlignment property.

> Maybe I should start setting bounties for patches of my own
> in order to get them committed.

Sure: then you (the requester) can pay you (the developer) whatever you think 
the feature is worth.  =)

Cheers,
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Graham,

There are also other sponsorship offers (by me, which I can confirm are still 
"open") which don't seem to be in the Google code "bounty" pile:





Plus, I seem to recall at least two other people willing to chip in for the 
bounties on break-alignment with MetronomeMarks, and a real 
piano-with-centred-dynamics fix.
[Can't find the links right now.]

Cheers,
Kieren.
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Re: bounties

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:51 PM, David Kastrup  wrote:
> Graham Percival  writes:
>
>> We have a bunch of items with "label:bounty".  Many come from more
>> than two years ago, so I'm not certain if bounty is still "open".
>
> Who gets the bounty?  Developer or committer?

Whoever wrote the patch, I assume.  But I really don't see this
working as an official system at the moment.

> Maybe I should start setting bounties for patches of my own in order to
> get them committed.

Heh.


BTW, although I gave the generalized markup-command patch a
"priority-low", that's just because I don't understand it and AFAIK
it's not in response to a high-priority issue.  It still shows up in
the list of patches:
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/list?can=2&q=label%3Apatch
and I (unofficially) consider all of those to be release-blockers -- I
don't want to release 2.14 if there's unresolved patches floating
around.

Cheers,
- Graham

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Re: bounties

[Graham Percival]

(sorry, hit "send" by accident)


We have a bunch of items with "label:bounty".  Many come from more
than two years ago, so I'm not certain if bounty is still "open".  But
my initial guess is that the following ones are still valid:

http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=379
ugly slur with key signature and linebreak
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=427
ugly collision slur and phrasing slur
%% Andrew Hawryluk offered CDN$50, which is currently worth 38 euro; I
think he's still good for this
%% Chris Snyder offered US$50, but I'm not certain if this is still open.


There's a bunch of "ease-of-use" items that have a standard "50 euro
or double an existing bounty" from Valentin.  Since I'm pretty certain
he's in the worst financial situation of any lilypond developer, I
personally would take this with a grain of salt.

There's a US$300 bounty for musicxml export, which is extremely low
given the work involved.

There's a EUR 400 bounty from Francisco and Valentin for a "better"
editor for windows to replace lilypad.  It's not quite clear what
people want to see that lilypondtool / Frescobaldi don't offer (other
than "comes with GUB").  I'd be cautious about this offer as well,
since it's not at all clear what they want, nor what we would be
willing to accept in GUB.


Cheers,
- Graham

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Re: bounties

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival  writes:

> We have a bunch of items with "label:bounty".  Many come from more
> than two years ago, so I'm not certain if bounty is still "open".

Who gets the bounty?  Developer or committer?

Maybe I should start setting bounties for patches of my own in order to
get them committed.

-- 
David Kastrup


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