Re: A working MusicXML engraver?

To chime in on this subject -- I agree that some sort of reference renderer
will be an important component of any specification to emerge.

The notion of using any present-day application as a solution to this
problem is rather tricky. For starters, any reference implementation needs
to faithfully track a specification that results from the group's decisions
(not those of a particular member), must be very strict, and must avoid the
type of ad hoc interpretations that are required today in order to
successfully import MusicXML from the most popular applications. These are
perhaps the biggest problems with using anything that exists today.

Also such a reference solution would effectively be part of the
specification, not just a helpful piece of external software: it would have
the same status as, say, test suites in other W3C specs.  So it needs to be
not only open source but also to have key IP rights assigned to the W3C, as
is now the case with MusicXML itself.

Just my thoughts so far.

Best,
...Joe

.            .       .    .  . ...Joe

*Joe Berkovitz*
President

*Noteflight LLC*
49R Day Street / Somerville, MA 02144 / USA
phone: +1 978 314 6271
www.noteflight.com
"Your music, everywhere"

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 10:09 AM, L Peter Deutsch <aemusic@major2nd.com>
wrote:

> > Sibelius 6.1 is over 6 years old, and is not even the latest free update
> > for the Sibelius 6.x line.
> >
> > Maybe you should try a more recent version of Sibelius?
>
> I cannot upgrade Finale beyond 2012, and I am sure I cannot upgrade
> Sibelius
> beyond 6.2 (the last free update offered for 6.x), because newer versions
> of
> these applications require newer versions of MacOS; and I cannot upgrade
> MacOS beyond 10.6.8, because newer versions of MacOS require newer Apple
> hardware; and I cannot upgrade my hardware any further, because Apple did
> not design it to be upgraded beyond its current level.
>
> The sibelius.com Web site says the current release of Sibelius requires
> MacOS 10.9 or later.  I'm downloading the 6.2 update now (it will take
> several hours, because I live in a rural area), but even if it will install
> and run on my Mac system, it too is surely several years old.
>
> Sibelius, like Finale (and most commercial MS Windows and MacOS
> applications, and MS Windows and MacOS themselves), shackles users to the
> upgrade treadmill.  That is why I run only Open Source OSs and applications
> on all of my computers, except when there is no alternative.  There too I
> am
> forced onto the upgrade treadmill at times (I had to upgrade Ubuntu Linux
> earlier this year to be able to run a version of Firefox recent enough to
> access an essential Web site), but I am not forced to pay hundreds of
> dollars for new, buggy software releases every year or two, or to replace
> my
> hardware every couple of years if I don't want to.  (Yes, Open Source
> software has bugs too, but they get fixed on a timescale determined by the
> community and not by a single vendor.)
>
> > If you have full reproduction for a MusicXML import bug, it's useful to
> > ensure that the repro is reported on http://sibelius.ideascale.com/
>
> sibelius.ideascale.com is a "feedback community": I don't understand what
> connection it has with Avid's developers, since it's not an avid.com or
> sibelius.com system.  I tried to access the site, but the very first page
> stalled in downloading, most likely because it requires a newer Web browser
> than I can install on my Mac (see above).  In any case, do you have reason
> to think that Avid will even look at bugs reported in Sibelius 6.2?  That
> would be quite exceptional for a maker of commercial software.  On the
> other
> hand, Avid did provide me with an older version of Sibelius when I
> requested
> one for compatibility testing, which MakeMusic would not do for Finale,
> despite my having paid for licensed copies of newer versions in both cases.
>
> Meanwhile, this is a nice example supporting my strong advocacy of open
> file
> formats, even undocumented ones.  If Sibelius and Finale didn't
> deliberately
> lock up their native file formats, third parties would have a shot at
> creating their own, better importers and exporters.  I made this point on
> the mup users discussion list recently: Finale and mup have compatible
> models of headers / footers / page numbering / left/right page adjustment
> that are more semantically oriented than that of MusicXML, so a direct
> Finale-to-mup translator could do a better job than one that uses MusicXML
> as an intermediate format; but because Finale has encrypted their file
> format as of 2014 (and Sibelius has always encrypted theirs, at least as
> far
> back as I have samples), such a translator cannot be written now, at least
> not one that can be written without a NDA and used without running a
> sufficiently recent licensed copy of Finale.  (The situation in Sibelius is
> only a bit better: ManuScript plug-ins do not require a NDA, but they don't
> have access to all of the score information, at least as of 6.x, and they
> also require running Sibelius.)
>
> If MusicXML or something inspired by it can reach maturity as a
> well-specified, well-implemented standard, users will have alternatives to
> this situation.  Despite the serious issues I've encountered with MusicXML
> in both design and practice, I am still optimistic that this may be
> possible.
>
> Finally, I've received a number of helpful suggestions for where to look
> for
> an existing (or nearly-existing :-)) MusicXML renderer.  Thanks to all who
> responded to my request.
>
>                                                 L Peter Deutsch
>
>