Re: Standartization and TeX
On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 10:27:55AM -0400, Boris Veytsman wrote:
> Documents in Microsoft Word last only until the company behind them
> decides to make a format change and milk the customers for a new
> version of their software. The fact that your decade old LaTeX paper
> is as good as new, while a Word document in several years might be
> unreadable, is a good argument against closed formats and proprietary
> software; I am surprised that Debian people are going to sacrifice
> it.
Personally, I have no particular objection to the requirement to rename
changed files. I don't have the legal knowledge to check the proposed
licence, so I've largely been staying silent.
However, I do think you're somewhat overstating the case. The obvious
comparable counterexample is troff. The free implementation, groff, has
been extended quite substantially beyond Ossanna and Kernighan's
original version back in the 70s; extended not only in its macro sets,
mind you, but also in terms of a complete reimplementation of its core
and substantial extensions to the basic syntax. Nevertheless, one can
take a troff document from the dawn of time - I think I was looking
through the ancient Unix archives that were recently made available -
and format it perfectly well with a modern-day groff.
The TeX community's approach has done well in terms of preserving
compatibility, but I think it is an exaggeration to suggest that this is
the only way to maintain compatibility in a document formatting
language. Clueful and careful maintenance (in contrast to the haphazard
development of your example, HTML) can do just as well.
> However, I agree with David Carlisle, that this discussion is
> moot. The present LPPL conforms to the present DFSG. If Debian people
> are going to change the guidelines, they must realize that this will
> render unacceptable not only LaTeX, but also a good part of other
> software, *including* some parts essential for GNU systems like
> texinfo.
Judging from what David Carlisle is presenting as the intention of the
LaTeX project (exact wording aside), I think there is no need to
overreact.
Also, it is really quite unlikely that the DFSG will be changed.
(Branden will no doubt be able to say this with more cynicism than I can
muster ...)
Regards,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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