[tex-live] Re: commercial TeXs

[David Kastrup]

Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> writes:

> why one tex instead of many tex's, why one kind of fo-xml instead of
> many xml-mapping languages; solving everything in one solution is
> bound to fail some time (watch all those big applications getting
> more and more complex); why the monopolies etc; kind of interesting
> that in a 'free world' there is always that tendency to 'the one and
> only application' (kind of applying communism in a capatalist
> environment)

Well, one attraction of free software is that it is legally possible
to join several branches of extensions when the need arises.  And it
is an attraction because it leads to a unification of efforts: more
often than not, there is a scarcity of developers and developer
time.  If the work of a developer benefits all users and not just the
users from a particular vendor, this is more efficient.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum