Not off-topic: Wrong couple divorced after computer error by law firm Vardag's

[Jonathan Fine]

Hi

SUMMARY: The TeX community is lagging behind lawyers in creation of archive
ready documents, as shown in a recent high-profile High Court judgement.

Recently "A couple were divorced by mistake after a computer error at a
family law firm. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68821406

This is relevant to us because the judgement is available in three forms:

HTML: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/fam/2024/733
PDF:
https://assets.caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/fam/2024/733/ewhc_fam_2024_733.pdf
XML: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/fam/2024/733/data.xml

This shows that the legal profession is considerably ahead of the TeX
community, in providing documents in multiple formats. Further the UK
National Archives support the production as storage of such multiple format
documents.

This is particularly important to us because Don Knuth intended (and
succeeded) in making TeX archival. However, most open source TeX-based
workflows do not support creation of high-quality HTML and XML output.

Oh, by the way, the PDF metadata for the judgement says that the creator is
LibreOffice 7.2.

In case you're interested in the off-topic aspect of this post, here are
some URLs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68821406
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/16/accidental_divorce_computer_error/
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/firm-pledges-full-support-to-lawyer-over-online-divorce-mistake/5119365.article
https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/04/16/ewhc_fam_2024_733.pdf

The law firm (on the Law Gazette) suggests the final divorce was due to a
usability problem on the website, and so should be "set aside". I learnt
about this incident from The Register. The judge (see last link for the
judgement) gives no or little weight to that argument.

with kind regards

Jonathan
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