Re: 30 day webathon for kickstarter support (issue 6068045)

[dak]

On 2012/04/19 22:25:17, mike_apollinemike.com wrote:

> The real-estate value of the upper right corner of http://lilypond.org
is huge.
> Currently it is unexploited property, just sitting there.  If there
are people
> who can offer LilyPond-friendly exchanges for it that fulfill the
criteria of
> (1) bringing value to LilyPond; and (2) not compromising the integrity
of the
> page or of LilyPond's status as free software, then I think it is
absolutely
> essential that LilyPond cultivate its real estate to this end.
Otherwise, it is
> wasted potential.

"Wasted potential" is another name for "we don't want to go there".  If
you take a look at, say, <URL:http://www.ardour.org>, you have an
integrated frontpage advertisement for proprietary software tying into
Ardour.  The main programmer of Ardour (which in itself is free
software) receives a percentage of sales of the advertised proprietary
software.

Now for better or worse, LilyPond is not a "Mike" project, or a "Graham"
project, or a "David" project.  It is a GNU project.  We don't have an
"official money sink" for LilyPond.  We do have a page pointing out how
to contribute or donate to LilyPond development.  Its discoverability is
debatable.  I point out there what kind of work can be sponsored by
paying me for it.  I would certainly not object (and it would certainly
be ridiculous if I did) if you pointed out your availability to work on
the engraving backend for pay.

It is actually something where I don't contribute significantly: my own
focus is not as much on increasing the amounts of things one can achieve
with LilyPond, but rather how much one can achieve without being clever.

But "visit our concerts, pay entrance, keep the ensemble alive and I'll
probably contribute more" is not actually appropriate there, either.  It
is not an offer, but a speculation and a story.  That's fine for
publishing in a lot of places, including the LilyPond Report, and I
encourage you doing so.  It is certainly more newsworthy than "LilyPond
programmer for hire", and you should milk that for what it is worth.

But the LilyPond _project_ pages are not the right milking machine here
in my opinion.  Of course, we have pages where we point out compositions
and other uses of LilyPond (I remember some recent additions in that
area): I don't think that you could be refused equal coverage there.

http://codereview.appspot.com/6068045/