mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

["Alvaro Tejero Cantero" <address@hidden>]

Hello all,

> Can you give your two cents on these three topic to justify why a
> TeXmacs application should be funded?

I managed to write a draft for a funding proposal to be sent to GANDI.
I would greatly appreciate your comments to form and content. The
comments in brackets are to indicate the purpose of a paragraph or
mark missing content.

> Concrete. You already exist and your project is sustainable or will
> truly have the potential to be so in the short term. More generally,
> you have built a well-known, high-quality project, but need some
> assistance.

[XXX here three paragraphs explaining what is TeXmacs, from the web page]

[status and why it needs assistance]
TeXmacs is already a sustainable high-quality free software project.
Compared to the Word-like offerings, it is manned by a very small core
team of 1-2 persons, yet manages to deliver an editor which is
arguably more productive to use, provides an unrivalled scientific
typesetting engine and steadily gains on features to offer a full
scientific suite. Its web page registers ~150.000 visits per month.
There have been [XXX Joris?] releases since the beginning of the
project in 1996 (?).

[XXX Here other indicators of impact. Also, develop further the idea
that TeXmacs needs assistance, already implied by the small core
team.]

> Open. We want to support projects that affect as many people as
> possible, or allow a community to expand their horizons.

[scientific users -> network possibilities]
Scientists should be able to reap the benefits of collaboration
through the Internet on a par with other netizens. Thanks to the
TeXmacs server currently under development this can be done in the
near future, via chat with mathematics support, scientific structured
wikis, and concurrent document edition.

[average user -> typesetter at hand]
While both students and scientists can benefit from the easy access to
mathematics, everybody can appreciate a well-typeset book. TeXmacs
provides a typesetter for the average user, who in the most simple use
case, can just visit a web page with the editor to have it typeset for
a pleasurable reading, either online or in paper.

[CAS users->common interface, cherrypicking of CAS engine]
TeXmacs already provides the only interface to Computer Algebra
Systems (CAS) which does a good job at presenting mathematics like we
write them, not like the computer likes to read them. When used as an
interface to CAS, TeXmacs allows the user to rely on the best of them
for the task at hand. In the future it will offer also a bridge
between different CAS by providing an intermediate format which can be
used to plug the results obtained with one system as input for another
one.


[power users-> editor extension]
The deep integration of a programming language inside TeXmacs, à la
Emacs (in which it is inspired) provides a playground for advanced
users to participate in the extension of the program. The whole
tree-structure of the document becomes accessible via the Scheme
language, which can also control the interface and behaviour of the
program.

[everybody->conversion tool, middleware]
TeXmacs is available in all major operating systems, exports to HTML,
XML/MathML, Postscript, PDF and plain text and imports from LaTeX and
HTML. TeXmacs can be used programmatically in any typesetting tool
chain where LaTeX would be used.


> Alternative. You are in opposition against a dominating "mass"
> commercial supply, that floods the market and does not leave any room
> for creation, and freedom of choice. You see, you might find this
> funny but this type of situation really makes us mad…

TeXmacs is free software.

TeXmacs unites a document and a program into the same object,
benefitting from the powerful code-data integration approach of the
lisp world. It makes visible in an unobtrusive manner the tree
structure of the document, allowing powerful user operation on
subtrees.

TeXmacs doesn't neglect the keyboard, like many modern applications
do. The keyboard bindings which are provided together with the ease of
customization make it easy to have a very productive environment. At
the same time, TeXmacs attracts the LaTeX pro by allowing to use the
environment names he already knows, and the GUI user by providing menu
access to all functions.

The "mainstream" offerings in word processing are those based on the
concept of Word. In the scientific world, LaTeX is mainstream and
monopolizes together with word the accepted input formats for refereed
journals.

Compared to Word processors which model themselves after Word, TeXmacs
provides more structured document edition, typesetting quality and a
far better productivity when scientific content is concerned.

Compared to LaTeX, TeXmacs builds upon the good practices (structure,
typesetting) and makes editing interactive and the structure more
programmatically accesible.

TeXmacs is uncompromising in that it honours the typesetting quality
we all are accustomed to since the 80's thanks to (La)TeX, yet asks
modern computers to deliver a more efficient and pleasurable writing
experience.

TeXmacs fits very well within the free knowledge movement: reading a
TeXmacs document is as comfortable as reading a well-typeset PDF/PS
document, but in addition the reader can modify the document and
contribute her changes.

In summary, TeXmacs is a different paradigm for word processing. For
scientists it offers collaboration functions, increased productivity
and high customizability. It also brings typesetting to everyone:
writing and reading with TeXmacs is more pleasurable than with the
overmarketed word-clones.

[XXX write about what the TeXmacs needs to improve as connection with
the concrete proposal about how to use GANDI's support]

-----------------


> Equally important, where could
> the money be spent?

I would either ask for support to be used

1) in developing the TeXmacs server and version-control support
["collaborative" TeXmacs], or

2) in porting TeXmacs to a modern toolkit ["integrated" TeXmacs], or

3) (my personal project) to get it more widely spread, by compiling
the whole collection of wikibooks and the Gutenberg project (and other
free books) with extreme care and style using TeXmacs, in the most
automated way possible ["universal TeXmacs"].

It would be nice to discuss who might implement these suggestions (or
other ideas of your own), and of course I would like to hear Joris'
opinion on this before submitting the proposal.  The new association
could be used to channel the money and its wiki at


Greetings,

 Álvaro.