[tex-announce] May 2007 TUG news: memberships, interviews, tug07, development funding

[tug-news at tug.org]

Dear TeX users,

- Thanks to everyone who has joined or renewed their TUG membership for
  2007.  If you haven't already, we sure hope you'll consider it!  The
  early bird membership discount ends May 31, so join today :).
  

- The latest subjects in the Interview Corner are David Fuchs, one of
  the original members of the Stanford TeX project, and Jin-Hwan Cho,
  maintainer of dvipdfmx and a strong supporter of TeX in Korea.
  http://tug.org/interviews/


- TUG 2007 will be held in San Diego, California, July 17-20, 2007, on
  the campus of San Diego State University.
  http://tug.org/tug2007/
  
  The web site has a registration form and other information.  We extend
  an early bird discount to those registering before May 31.  Hope to
  see you in San Diego!
  https://www.tug.org/tug2007/register.html


The most exceptional news we have is about funding for TeX development.
We are very excited and grateful to be able to announce that an
anonymous foundation has just contributed $10,000 to TUG to be used to
encourage significant advances in TeX development.

Furthermore, our generous donor has made a second $10,000 available as
matching funds, and therefore we are seeking other contributors, both
institutional or individual, to contribute a matching $10,000 (thus
reaching a total of $30,000).  Early matching contributions have already
passed $3,000 -- we thank CAPDM Limited and other donors for their
support.  To contribute, please see the information and form at
https://www.tug.org/donate/dev.html.

These amounts of money are not sufficient to fund significant new
activities (for instance, we cannot hire full-time programmers).  Thus,
we expect to use at least some of these funds to augment existing
efforts, rather than starting anything major from scratch.

The TeX Development committee of TUG will have responsibility for
allocating these funds.  As part of the gift, we were asked to develop a
basic roadmap for future TeX development to help guide where the
contributions are spent.  The committee has already solicited input from
some of the major extant TeX development projects, and will be
soliciting additional input.

At the donor's suggestion, we will also be considering ways to improve
the TeX experience specifically for "ordinary" users, such as students.
This could include enhancements in front end software, new or improved
documentation at that level, and other projects.

We are enthusiastic about the opportunity we've been provided, and very
much hope, as does our donor, that the results will be beneficial for
all TeX users.


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