.org/.com organization

• Dec 8, 2020 - 16:50

I'm spinning this off of Tantacrul's thread on 3.6/4.0 updates.

Musescore is a wonderful project/product; certainly it (and Covid) have spurred me back into composition with an intensity I've never before managed. Thank you!

But the organization (small-o) of Musescore is a little obscure to me: there's .org which "is, and always will be, free."; there's .com, which operates as a freemium site, and is ?responsible? for funding development and maintainance of the .org site (?) What is the exact relationship between the two? [other than posters on the .org forum get yelled at--justly--for complaining about their .com accounts.] And then there is Ultimate Guitar--greetings Kaliningrad! Who exactly owns what (tangible or intangible)? Who exactly is on the payroll? Run as a non- or at least not-for-profit, I assume. Certainly, those moderators who will respond helpfully to my queries within minutes, and on a Sunday morning, deserve any shekels they receive, if any.

Although I do not have a pay .com account, and have no wish to do so, there was at least one instance when I was feeling particularly charitable, and wished to donate to .org directly--the way I do IMSLP or wikipedia--but found the mehcanism to do so too questionable and opaque. Perhaps an improvement in the structure here?

Also, is there a way to--unobtrusively, of course--contact individual users directly over .org? over .com?

Or should I not be asking these questions, and stick to "laissez-vibrez" curves?

Comments

• Dec 8, 2020 - 17:55

I can clarify a little of this just based on my own position as an informed observer - I have no direct connection to the company, and I'm not sharing here anything that isn't already public knowledge if you pay enough attention. Maybe someone wants to make an official statement, but meanwhile:

Ultimate Guitar is a regular for-profit company that owns the MuseScore product. There are maybe half a dozen or so employees of the company working on the MuseScore notation software (which is of course free and open source), and another half dozen or so working on musescore.com (you can see their names if you go to that site and check the new-ish official site group). Perhaps more behind the scenes, I wouldn't know.

My best guess is that some of the latter group also spend a few minutes a month maintaining this site, but mostly, this site probably runs itself. I assume there are indeed "moderators" on this site but I have no idea who they are, and doubt any of them post much. The vast majority of people who answer questions here - like me - are just fellow users of the software, maybe some of us also happen to contribute some to the development.

For contacting users, if they have set up their profile to allow a contact form, you can do so by clicking their name, then the Contact button at top right of the page that result.

I haven't tried a donation recently, but I don't recall anything about the process seeming particularly unusual.

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• Dec 8, 2020 - 18:26

Actually, I was including you, Marc, in my use of "modertors"--perhaps not the accurate term. So a personal Thank You!

I don't remember what specific issue I had making a contribution--it might have been a third party site I didn't trust, or . . ., but something raised a red flag, justified or not.

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• Dec 8, 2020 - 18:54

"The most valuable donation you can give us is your time. Get involved: "

Unfortunately, I don't enough--read any--experience in coding to assist in development. On this forum, there's usually someone more experienced than I to answer questions; although if I see a query about some specific issue that I have had experience with (usually a notation one), or if I can read by the poster's language that s/he has a particular skill level or area of interest (assuming I have time), I will try to post a detailed, clearly written response.

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