Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:07:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Hoenig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I understand that you are planning to drop Omega from the official
teTeX distribution, and I am writing to urge you to reconsider this
decision. It is frustrating that Yannis Haralambous and John
Plaice are so uncommunicative, but I hope that this is no reason to
discriminate against the software.
It is not discriminated against. Once there is a stable release of
it, it can be included like anything else.
Many people lose interest in their programs, no longer have time,
or even die, but their software continues to live after them. The
current Omega works for me
What current Omega? There are several different releases with
different features and in different states of non-documentation. Who
but the user itself is to decide which of those versions is what will
be working for him?
Of course, even if Omega were not part of teTeX, it is still
readily available. Yet being ``dropped'' somehow confers a badge
of shame or even of illegitimacy that Omega does not deserve.
Get a stable release of it then. The contention with regard to that
is that Yannis and John are of the opinion that the current state is
so temporary that it is not worth either documenting it or developing
a consistent LaTeX interface for this version for lambda.
If you are of a different opinion, feel free to spin off a stable,
documented Omega/Lambda from the development line of Omega where you
find it appropriate. Yannis and John do not consider that worth
doing, and it certainly is above the head of someone like Thomas that
does not even use Omega.
It is cheap demanding that Thomas should do all the work required for
choosing and making a usable fixed point from Omega. I would be
willing to bet that if you volunteered on spearheading an effort of a
stable Omega spinoff, that Thomas would not object.
Moreover, an orphan Omega that is not integrated into teTeX will be
much harder for a na\{\i}ve user---even an experienced user---to
install. For these reasons, I do hope you will reconsider your
decision.
It is hard enough work to collect and arrange stable, released
software supported and documented by their authors. I would rather
have Thomas concentrate on that than trying to second-guess users and
developers of a system where nobody cares enough to provide a useful
release. And that also means you.
If you think I sound like a complete ***, this may be just because
I am, but that does not change the principal problem.
--
David Kastrup Phone: +49-234-32-25570
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: +49-234-32-14209
Institut für Neuroinformatik, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany
