[tex-announce] November 2006 TUG news: elections, conferences, TUGboat, development

[tug-news at tug.org]

Dear TeX users,

- 2007 is an election year for TUG:
  The positions of TUG President and several members of the TUG Board of
  Directors will be open as of the TUG 2007 Annual Meeting.  The
  election to choose the new president and board members will be held in
  the spring of 2007.  Nominations for these openings are now invited;
  the deadline to receive nominations is 1 February 2007.
  
  Please see http://tug.org/election/ for information and forms.


- Conferences:
  TUG 2006 is taking place in Marrakesh, Morocco, 9-11 November 2006.
  http://tug.org/tug2006/
  
  The first international ConTeXt conference will take
  place in Epen, The Netherlands, on 24-25 March 2007.
  http://context.aanhet.net/epen2007/
  
  EuroBachoTeX 2007 will be held in Bachotek, Poland, from
  28 April to 2 May, 2007.
  http://www.gust.org.pl/conferences/EuroBachoTeX2007/
  
  TUG 2007 will be likely be held in July 2007 in San Diego, California.
  Further details will be available when the venue has been confirmed
  (not long, we hope).


- A different sort of conference item:
  The Joint Mathematics Meeting will take place in New Orleans, USA,
  5-8 January 2007.  If you or someone you know will be attending and would
  be willing to distribute TeX and TUG material at the event, please
  contact us.  http://www.ams.org/amsmtgs/2098_intro.html
  

- Journals:
  TUGboat 27:1, the EuroTeX 2006 proceedings from Debrecen, Hungary, is
  at the printer's now.  Allotting the usual time for production and
  mailing, we hope it will be in members' hands by the end of the month.
  
  TUGboat 27:2, the TUG 2006 proceedings, is mostly complete, but will
  be finalized and mailed after the conference.
  

- Software:
  Work on TeX Live continues, with new versions of MetaPost and pdfTeX
  expected to be released soon.  We hope that the TeX Collection 2006,
  which will include new versions of MacTeX (based on gwTeX) for MacOSX
  and proTeXt (based on MiKTeX) for Windows as well as the
  cross-platform TeX Live, will be shipped by the end of the year.
  http://tug.org/texcollection


- Finally, it is our pleasure to gratefully and publicly acknowledge
  a significant grant from Colorado State University for a new
  incarnation of pdfTeX, which will include support for Arabic
  typesetting and OpenType as well as the Lua embedded language.  This
  long-term effort is being implemented primarily by Taco Hoekwater at
  http://www.luatex.org/, in conjunction with the MetaPost and pdfTeX
  development teams.  Technical reports and other information will be
  published in future journal issues.  Idris Samawi Hamid of CSU was the
  instigator of the grant, and we thank Dr. Hamid and his institution.
  
  (By the way, Taco was the latest subject in the Interview Corner,
  http://tug.org/interviews, and includes an overview of these projects.)


As always, please don't hesitate to contact us (tug-news at tug.org) with
questions, suggestions, or information.  

Happy TeXing,
Karl Berry (President) on behalf of the TUG Board
http://www.tug.org/