Paul Tannous <address@hidden> writes:
Shane:
it would be more sensible to sell the .ly file at a higher cost. It
is certainly the more valuable entity, both in terms of work in and
future utility.
After considering your comments, I and my team believe that we should
offer the .ly files as the primary premiums to Kickstarter
contributors.
I'm not sure what "primary premiums are".
After all, anyone wanting to contribute to this initiative would most
likely have an interest in LilyPond sources in general and in the
LilyPond sources that we will be producing in particular.
Well, the principal motivation of those supporting the "free" angle will
likely be inpired by the free software movement, based on the four
software freedoms:
Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it
to make it do what you wish.
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements (and modified versions in general) to the
public, so that the whole community benefits.
It's pretty obvious that freedom 1 and freedom 3, when applied to a
score rather than software, would best benefit from the availability of
the .ly file. Make no mistake: I have seen impressive "arrangements"
made by xerox and scissors (I remember some Brandenburg
concerto
rearrangement for strings, with flaps from orchestra voices pasted into
another voice, and with "transpositions" and range adaptations by
drawing in other clefs and additional staff lines while striking out
others). But that's peanuts to what one can reasonably well do using
LilyPond.
The spirit of the GPL is that you can ask whatever you want for a
program, but you get the right to distribute it and the corresponding
sources for it in the bargain.
So I think it would be a nice fit if the .ly file was included in any
offering, making the people feel they are actually doing something for a
freely available score as source material.
As for perks: many people will consider it quite an effort actually
doing anything with the .ly file, so you could offer custom
transpositions or paper formats (of course, sans tweaking) in PDF form
as perks. That's nothing that someone willing to learn
LilyPond would
not be able to do himself, but it might be a nice motivation for those
who are in it for the paper score.