(hypothetical) Availability of LilyPond engravers

[Urs Liska]

Hi all,

<disclaimer>this is more or less hypothetical and nothing to be excited 
about</disclaimer>.
I realize that I don't have a real idea about the size of our community, 
and particularly regarding the availability of music typesetters who 
could offer reliably continuous engraving services.

If I should be asked to engrave a big score (as fast as possible) in a 
commercial context and wouldn't want to reply "well, I will ask around 
and see how many people I can get together", what could I say? Would it 
be realistic to say that we could (at any time) provide a team of 10 
quailfied engravers working full time on a project? Or 15-20 working 
half time?
And what if it were a request for continuous work? Is it realistic to 
say there are always enough engravers at hand to accept work?

I feel that one aspect that makes publishers hesitate to consider 
LilyPond is exactly this question: They know that there will always be a 
sufficient number of available and qualified Finale and Sibelius users, 
and presumably even Score users, but they don't have an idea about this 
with LilyPond.

Any opinions or estimates?

Urs