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From: DLV@CUNYVMS1.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: TUG and TeX...
Message-ID: <9009051759.AA07088@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 5 Sep 90 17:24:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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I will comment on some points raised here and then will try to quiesce my
contributions to this thread until BB comes back. (It's not nice to
criticize a person who's not here and can't reply.)

(Many thanks to Dorothy Monks and everyone else who shares my concerns to
some extent.)

I am very happy to see the list of TeX's for MS-DOS that Don Hosek composed!
I very much hope to see it in TUGBoat's next issue (#3). (With or without
further comparisons of performance and features).

It's absolutely not true that TUGBoat pushes commercial TeX's only through
advertisements. I too looked through the latest issue (#2) and I saw, e.g.,
the following on p. 312:

>Vectox TeX
>retains all the advantages of TeX plus:
>--- saves megabytes of storage---entire VTeX fits on one floppy;
>--- instantly generate any font in any size and in any variation from 5 to
>90 points;
>--- standard font effects include compression, slant, smallcaps, outline
>and shading. New: shadow;
>--- Discover the universe of MicroPress professional typefaces: not
>available for any other TeX.

This is EDITORIAL COPY, not a PAID AD. Now, it says on p. 310: ``These
product descriptions were takem, for the most part, from the publishers'
announcements''. If this were a promotional leaflet, a reader would just
dismiss it as bad ad (doesn't sound like truth) written by someone who
speaks very poor English; but quoting such material in editorial copy is
inappropriate, and makes one question the publication's credibility.

Why doesn't TUGBoat similarly reprint README files from emTeX, SBTeX, et al?
(I don't think it should, but that would be the easiest way to make its
readers aware of their existence, if no one is willing to write
something original about them!) In fact, I looked through the entire #2, and
found no mention of John Radel, or emTeX, or SBTeX, or Unix TeX
distribution from U of Washington.

Selling TeX's is not an honest way to make money. While it's not in the
public domain, its source code is published, comes with excellent comments,
and is available in machine-readable form. It doesn't take a rocket
scientist to make a runnable TeX for MS-DOS, nor is it so hard to produce
DVITYPE-based device drivers (better yet, Beebe-based:). (Having tried this,
I know this is so.) (That's why there are so many TeX ports out there!)
(Heck, Don Knuth and Addison Wesley would have terrific copyright
infringement cases against some folks; too bad they're not likely to sue!:)

Very few people would pay hundreds of dollars for an MS-DOS TeX
implementation knowing they can get TeX and device drivers of comparable
quality from Eberhard Mattes or John Radel. In fact, whether I come across a
PCTeX user (I have nothing against PCI, they're fine folks, it's just their
there are so many of their users out there:) and tell her that there's an
absolutely free SBTeX which is just as good as what she's using, the user
gets really mad that she spent so much money. It's perfectly fine to sell
*enhancements* to TeX, e.g., PCI's programs for converting BITSTREAM fonts
into PK files. But selling TeX itself, or plain vanilla device drivers, is a
scam. In effect, TeX sellers prey on the ignorance of the TeX community at
large. I'm really sorry to see that TUGBoat promotes this ignorance by
promoting commercial TeX's and not even mentioning the existence of free
alternatives. Most TeX users don't have access to the nets and get their
information about TeX directly from TUGBoat or indirectly from those who
read TUGBoat. TUGBoat misinforms these people, and does a great disservice
to the TeX community.

Don Hosek claims that TUGBoat has become dependent on advertizing money.
(This sounds a bit like a health magazine dependent on cigarette advertizing
and not publishing any papers about tobacco's harmful effects. Lack of
integrity/credibility, or lack of submissions? :) First, not all ads in
TUGBoat are for commercial implementations of TeX: typical ads seem to be
for a DVI-to-typesetter services, macro packages, and the like. Second, if
you don't stop running ads for these TeX sellers, it'll cost you
considerably more---the remainder of your (already tainted) credibility.

Regarding the suggestion that the people putting TUGBoar together do it for
free and hence don't have to do a good job, I personally would prefer that
they be paid and do a better job. (We do pay for the fruits of their labor.)

Dimitri Vulis
CUNY GC Math