[LAD] Improvisor lilypond support!?

[laseray at gmail.com]

>>> Thanks man. I'll forward this to Bob Keller too. 
>>> I think he mentioned in a message that he is willing to give developers 
>>> svn access to the recent code. 
>>> 
> > 
> > Really. Last year I found Improvisor and wanted to contribute to it,
> > so I got  in contact with Bob. I made some changes to integrate the
> > application better into the desktop (on Mac OS X also) and did some
> > initial cleanup.  
> > The reaction I received was less than welcoming. In fact, the message I
> > got was that they were not interested in really allowing outside
> > developers to contribute. Thus my changes were never used, or considered
> > as far as I can tell. What I got was a bunch of excuses about the
> > situation with the application until finally this Bob guy came straight
> > out and harshly refused to cooperate on development. I even had to ask
> > numbers of time before I could finally get the source code and this
> > resulted in it finally being posted on the group. 
> > Basically the group that works on it is his student research group at the
> > educational institution he is employed at. So it appears that they just
> > want to keep all the glory and credit for the application to themselves by
> > disallowing outside contributions. This is really not manner that we
> > usually associate with FOSS. The fact that you have to subscribe to a user
> > group even to get the binary is one big clue. To my mind the only reason
> > it is under GPL is because they use other libraries that are, not because
> > they see some benefit to doing so. 
> > The only way to go with this application, at the moment, is to fork it. I
> > was considering doing this a while ago, but have other projects keeping me
> > busy. If you can convince them to open it up, great. I wouldn't hold my
> > breath though. If enough other developers are interested then I could give
> > some time to a fork. 

> This is what he replied me 
 
> "If there are developers who are serious, I could provide svn access to 
> our repository. Right now there are 3 people who are active. We are 
> about to release version 4, which is almost a year out from version 3.39 
> that is in the user group. " 
 
> So I think we have to go the working together way first. 
> I've forwarded the message of Lasconic to him, let's wait for his reply 
> on that. 
 
 
No, I think you are wrong here to even consider trying to cooperate. I waited
after your initial reply to respond because obviously you weren't fully
considering my points, so I decided to see what happens. Now a preview of the 
next version of impro-visor has been released and it is as I expected. No
source code, again. Blatant GPL violation again. That was unexpected, not!

Where's that SourceForge project also? That's right, it does not exist.

I sent a message about the missing source code, again. I wonder what excuses
he will give, again (or has he decided to not even respond to my legitimate
inquiries now). Last time it was that he was on the road or busy or <enter
lame excuse here>. He had the time to package up binaries for Linux,
Mac, and Windows, but could not zip up the source and post it at the same 
time?! Go check that with him and let's see how the responses match what I am
saying.

Now I am seriously considering forking this application myself, to make
sure that everyone can get the current source code, they do not have
to join some group just to get the binary, and that real contributions can
actually get in. Yeah, I'm a serious developer, but that guy never offered to
give me any access and the new version still has bugs that I already fixed
which he would not accept.

I will give it a little longer, but if these people don't get their act
together and start doing things in accord with the GPL, then they should
either change their license and remove all GPL stuff or not be surprised when
a forked version appears (Improvisor+ sounds good: Improvisor, plus the source
code and the ability for others to contribute, and not needing to be in some
group just to get it, and ...).
 
There has been plenty of time for them to do the right thing. Time has run
out already. Let's not be naive. Some people put out applications as GPL
just so they can say they did, but really they just want to ride on the FOSS
bandwagon to look good. Then when you try to get involved, contribute, or
ask for the source code, all of a sudden they clamp down on things and show
you that they want to control everything, as if it is a commercial proprietary
program. Sorry this does not fly with me. I have had this experience with
another project that thinks they are FOSS and that they can do no wrong. The 
end result was that I did actually end up having to fork the program because 
of their inability to conduct themselves properly.

Perhaps some other people should get in contact with this project and voice
their concerns and views about how FOSS and GPL based projects do things.
If they start to do things right, then I won't have to fork it. But either 
way, the source code and binaries WILL be freely available and without need
for membership in some group. Drive that point home if you will.

Regards,

Raymond Martin