[OS X TeX] Macintouch report on TeX versus Word

[Alain Schremmer]

On Jan 20, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Juergen Fenn wrote:

>
>
> Alain Schremmer schrieb:
>
>>> This is very welcome. I wonder if those lists should be linked to  
>>> from
>>> the MacTeX wiki - if only to show to the interested that (La)TeX is
>>> not a products for some small club of nerds...
>>
>> Perhaps not for some _very_ small club of nerds but, certainly,  
>> for some
>> small club of nerds.
>>
>> We better face it.
>
> Of course, we are a minority and always will be. But at least in  
> Germany
>  use of LaTeX has grown over the past, say, four or five years, as can
> be seen from the number of introductions to LaTeX published over this
> time span.

Well, that says something for Germany.

But, as the Daily Mirror headlined on Thursday, November 4, 2004, How  
can 59,017,382 people be so DUMB?

But this is not really the issue.

I recognize that the development of an incarnation of LaTeX that  
would be "easy for the rest of us to use" is not within the reach of  
any small number of separate people working in a forge.

But recognizing that the current incarnation of LaTeX leaves  
something seriously to be desired is an absolute must if only just to  
create a space in which such a future incarnation of LaTeX may be  
discussed, both in its features and in the conditions necessary for  
its creation and whatever else is necessary.

Else, we will not "always be a minority": MS will eventually succeed  
in doing to LaTeX what it tried to do to Java and sure did to Basic.  
It is only a matter of time.

And then we will be nowhere at all.

Regards
--schremmer


> If there were no demand, publishers would not print these books.
>
> Jürgen.
>
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