Are there any plans to reveal what the future will bring for NWC?
Any plans to port NWC to other OS (Linux) or open the source and find another business model to make money with NWC?
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." - Niels Bohr
It does not matter anymore. But the "never say a thing and ignore everything" from the noteworthy-dev is not, like he said one time, to not disappoint anyone. For me it looks like ignoring the users and beeing intransparent.
That hasn't been my total experience. Some things have
seemed to be ignored/forgotten/too hard, but on the other hand, I've also had other things dealt with very positively. E.g. the ability to change system fonts was a direct result of a request I made to make using my *Dings suites easier.
Still, I can understand how you feel.
My experience matches Lawrie's: I have made a specific request and seen Eric respond to it immediately. In my case, it was a suggestion that the visibility attribute of a newly-placed dynamic should match that of the previous dynamic in the same staff. This was to help prepare piano scores, primarily (dynamics on one of the two staves of a piano score must usually be consistently invisible, and it's a pain to have to change them all by hand). Eric immediately asked for opinions from other users, got mostly positive ones, and implemented the change in the next release.
And there are distinct advantages to not releasing future plans. That way, we don't get our hopes up and then have them dashed when the programming doesn't go as smoothly as Eric wishes it to. I think the policy on releasing future plans is fine the way it is.
Cheers,
Bill
He just could go open source and sell binary copies in windows and sell support. Additionally he could accept donations with wishes what features need to be improved.
Or he could just do all that but not on the NWC but on some Cross-OS (win, linux, mac) notation editor with similar goals, for example www.denemo.org which can do much what NWC can't and is requested all the time (multi measure rests etc.) but could throw in his experience with NWC (user interface, notation+midi etc., windows compiling) and make the best possible notation editor.
Since this example, Denemo, is GPL he could even sell his own versions of it or a fork of it. There are quite some programms which make more money with donations and selling cds, even when the code is freely avaible. Especially for programms like NWC and Denemo which are for a quite small user-group. Additionally other people get involved and a better notation programm is the result. Things like the Google Summer of Code are possible, too (the NWC-dev could work on his own programm for several month but will be paid by google for it)
I hope this post will not be deleted. This is not to try get users away from NWC but to show alternatives in developing such a programm like the NWC.
Go ahead, Steele. Build your own program. Market it if you wish.
For me, I'll stick with NWC. I'm sort of used to it, and it meets my needs very well.
I doubt Eric is in it for the money, for if he is, his price would be much higher. However, he has invested a lot of time in developing a very fine product, and has established a solid, loyal user group.