Re: Sibelius Software UK office shuts down

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 02/08/12 16:04, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> Even if no actual development overlap takes place, there are still other
> potential areas of cooperation -- infrastructure, project management,
> fundraising, organizing events and demonstrations -- to make it worthwhile.

Just to give some background to this remark:

  * Sibelius is very widely used across British schools and music colleges.
    That's a substantial amount of money being spent by these institutions
    on music notation software; it made sense in many ways, as Sibelius was a
    prime example of British innovation and they were helping to support both
    British jobs and an important British brand.  Now, that's clearly no longer
    the case and they are unlikely to be happy if their software of choice is
    no longer being adequately supported.

    In principle, that money could be redirected towards the development of
    free software that they can rely on not to be undermined by a cynical owner.

  * At the same time, the last year has seen a growing stress on computer
    science in schools.  This is greatly centred around encouraging engagement
    with open source software -- see e.g. the Raspberry Pi, and the "Next Gen"
    report on ICT in British education:
    http://www.raspberrypi.org/
    http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/assets/features/next_gen

  * Both MuseScore and Lilypond can be positioned in this educational context
    and can use it as a source of both engagement and development funding.  I
    stress these two software packages for a simple reason: so far as I can see,
    MuseScore is the most sophisticated WYSIWYG score editor out there, and
    Lilypond is easily the most advanced in terms of musical sophistication and
    notational beauty.  They also seem to me to have the healthiest development
    and user communities.