3 GNU Music project - manifesto
7 Random ranting about the GNU Music project.
11 Provide musicians with free software for
45 These systems should encourage laymen to take up composing, in the
46 same way that GNU tools have created a whole new generation of
49 The public deserves free tools for composing and printing.
54 Emacs and TeX serve as useful examples of what programs by the GMP
61 (cf TeX), from engraving point of view
65 (cf Emacs) from software point of view: like all GNU software, it
66 should have no limits, be fast, etc.
70 Printed music has a lot of styles, and special symbols. It may be
71 unfeasible to provide and maintain lots of code that is hardwired
72 into the system. The tools should be extensible/programmable like
77 That is, for technical users (that can read a manual). The learning
78 curve should be as flat as possible but not at the expense of comfort
87 =item A set of music fonts
89 Preferably in Metafont, suited to both screen display and use on
92 =item A typesetting engine
94 A system with rules on how to set properties of items to be printed
95 (up/down directions, breaking, dimensions, etc) LilyPond provides one,
96 but it is not (yet) suited to interactive typesetting
98 =item A display engine
100 which can display clear notewriting in (say) an X-window
102 Ideally the system should cooperate with the typesetting engine
104 =item An ASCII language
106 In development, LilyPond has a language. (See over there for goals)
107 Having an ASCII format which enables urtext, and easy sharing (via
108 mail and news forums) encourages cooperation and exchange of music.
110 =item A printing engine
112 Maybe to be merged with the display system.
114 =item An input system
116 The natural way to enter composed music is singing or playing it. The
117 GMP should have module which can take keyboard input or microphone
118 input and convert it to computer data. (microphone input would be
123 (have no clue about this)
125 =item A scanning system
127 Having a system which can produce mudela from printed scores, greatly
128 simplifies creating a collection of music
130 =item A music-understanding system
132 (difficult) A system to generate accompaniments, figured bass,
133 automatic accompaniment, etc.
144 A noninteractive typesetter, suited for batch jobs, and typesetting
145 existing music. This would couple the ASCII language, the printing
146 engine and the typesetting engine
148 LilyPond is currently representing this section.
152 A GUI for composing. This would combine the display engine, the input
153 system and the typesetting engine.
157 Libraries for reading and writing various audio/music/notation
162 =head1 TASKS (SHORT TERM)
168 Think about interfaces for components.
172 Find sponsors. This project will take a long time, and in its infant
173 stages, having a hard and small core which does a lot of work, is more
174 efficient than lots of people doing small subprojects. Finanicial
175 support would be desirable.
184 Please note that this all happened when I wasn't around yet. If you
185 think that I am a biased, unfair, predisposed hypocrite, then don't
186 bother flaming me; I already know that.
188 The GNU Music project is a project which aims to create free software
189 for music printing and composing. It was started in november '92 by a
190 core team of four members (Bryan Ford <baford@cs.utah.edu>, David Linn
191 <drl@vuse.vanderbilt.edu>, Francois Pinard <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca>,
192 Neil Jerram <nj104@cus.cam.ac.uk>) and in January '93 Robert Strandh
193 <Robert.Strandh@labri.u-bordeaux.fr> joined.
195 After serious disputes with Robert Strandh and the FSF staff in '94,
196 the project core team got divided. The development efforts of GMP
199 Independently, I (HWN) started LilyPond. When I showed it to
200 RMS, he was very enthousiastic about having LilyPond in the GNU
201 project. I subsequently learned about the GNU Music project, and
204 What was left of the GMP (Robert Strandh) and us, LilyPond people,
205 agreed that cooperation would be desirable. Although merging of both
206 efforts was and is technically infeasible, we did decide that LilyPond
207 should also be part of the GNU Music project.
209 Only later did I discover the previous quarrels about the GMP-"take
210 1". To show that I am aware of the history, and to make sure nobody
211 gets me wrong or is angry at me because I stole a project or a
212 project's name, I wrote this note.
214 In summary, LilyPond is now the only substantial embodiment of the GNU
215 Music Project, and it is part of the GNU project.
217 For completeness' sake, I will mention the other efforts here:
221 =item G Sharp, http://dept-info.labri.u-bordeaux.fr/~strandh/Gsharp
223 An alpha version notation editor for X in Scheme. Source available on
224 request from Robert Strandh.
228 An alpha version of a music editing system with Musictex
229 output. Pretest versions of GNU Music (v0.3) can still be obtained from
234 This history note is probably biased in some way, because I wrote it.
235 The rest of this document is also entirely mine, and is not meant to
236 reflect anyone else's opinion.