Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!shelby!agate!ziploc!eps
From: eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: MusicProse
Message-ID: <1287@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Date: 6 Feb 91 08:37:05 GMT
References: <465@nwnexus.WA.COM> <1025@eplunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Organization: San Francisco State University
Lines: 36

I've said this before, but it bears repeating:

Good music composition programs will appear when NeXT makes it
conducive--everything's there EXCEPT for a bundled music font.
Without that, don't expect to see any freeware turn up (and
successful freeware is a proven method for commercial vendors to
ascertain interest in niche markets).

There *is* a music font in Adobe's collection--Sonata.  It was
available for a limited time to NeXT developers for a fee, along
with a handful of others (not in the Adobe Plus Pack--which for
an additional $500 merely gives you what every Apple LaserWriter
II owner already has).

I noticed that the description of MusicProse (see, this does
relate to the Subject: :-) ) in the Fall 1990 _Software and
Peripherals_ catalog indicates that Coda intended to ship its own
PostScript fonts.  That represents a prohibitive (and IMHO,
unnecessary) amount of work.

If, on the other hand, we look at the situation in the Mac
world, the official Adobe Sonata Screen Fonts are available
*for free* by anonymous FTP from sumex-aim.stanford.edu
under license from Adobe--that's sufficient for an impoverished
Mac software developer.

Apple may have lame hardware, an inscrutable operating system,
and a horrible price/performance ratio, they usually have their
head where the sun shines when it comes to licensing issues,
and The World's Meanest Lawyers to protect their interests.

Apple wants their machine to appeal to the music market.
NeXT doesn't seem terribly motivated.
Guess where the sales (and profits) are going?

					-=EPS=-