[texhax] steady decline in tug membership ?

[Axel E. Retif]

On  31 Jan, 2008, at 18:14, Karl Berry wrote:

> The main tangible benefit of joining TUG is TUGboat.
> (And the software on physical discs, but that's all downloadable.)
>
> The main intangible benefit is supporting the world of TeX.

Simple ethics is another ---we (people like me) are profiting from  
the work of other people, be it financially or just for the Joy of  
TeX. The least we can do is help a little with the administrative  
expenses that involves maintaining such a wonderful work.

I'm not a scientist (wish I were! but I'm not), as someone said  
recently in this list; I'm a copy-editor and typographer at heart (I  
even learned to use a composing stick when I was a kid).  
Unfortunately afraid of TeX for many years, I dwelt in the  
QuarkXPress & rivals world for a long time. Then, thanks to the  
Macintosh TeX community (and some books), I took the plunge and  
started learning LaTeX.

TeX is what makes my blood bubble like using a composing stick did.
----------

On  31 Jan, 2008, at 16:42, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

[...]

> Please don't forget that people on this mailing list already spend a
> lot of time answering other people's questions.  They do not only
> answer, they try to reproduce problems on their machines, they develop
> code if necessary,

Sadly, not me.

> they read documentation, they read documentation,
> they read documentation, they read documentation...

Yes, I do; yes, I do; yes, I do; yes, I do. And almost every reply  
from me consists of a referral to documentation, or to a package that  
has helped me for a similar problem or even to another mailing list.

Best (and thank you),

Axel