Re: Why People Give Up on Groups.

[Liviu Andronic]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 6:04 AM, Alan L Tyree alanty...@gmail.com wrote:

 gordon_cooper writes:

 Hello to all,
 I have been a Lyx user for a year or so and regarded
 this Group as place to find help.  I am saddened to see it descend
 into a slanging session.

 I quit,
 Gordon
 New Zealand

 Don't let one bad thread drive you away, Gordon. Mostly the list is one
 of the friendliest around as well as being one of the most helpful.

Seconded.

Liviu


 Cheers,
 Alan


 --
 Alan L Tyree   http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
 Tel:  04 2748 6206 sip:172...@iptel.org



-- 
Do you know how to read?
http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
Do you know how to write?
http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer:

Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in
the long run?


It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, 
although at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the 
fact that we continue to advance in a time where the number of active 
and enthusiastic developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust 
project. Having 3 more active developers (I mean good enough to avoid 
generating random code that will take years to clean up) is the most we 
need probably.


What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of 
killer app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of 
users ready to make some investment in learning time. Having people who 
trust LyX enough to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.


JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak:

I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the
problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from
the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export
your .lyx file to a pdf with

   lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx 
binary. From the top of my head, it is at

/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx

JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 3:53 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:
 25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak:

 I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the
 problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from
 the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export
 your .lyx file to a pdf with

lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx


 ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary.
 From the top of my head, it is at
 /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx

Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?

Scott

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Liviu Andronic]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:
 What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer
 app,

..which LyX already is. I like the gasp of people, who have been
inflicted with LaTeX, when I show them how easy and straightforward it
is to create document and get a PDF output with LyX by simply pushing
the magic  button. They also seem to go nuts about the table editing
feature in LyX; a colleague told me that she could never manage to
understand how to deal with tables in LaTeX, so she was doing the
tables in Word and then inserted them in .tex as a screenshot.


 but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready
 to make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough
 to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.

Indeed.

Liviu

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:

... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary.
 From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx


Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?


Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command 
line. If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open 
myfile.lyx.


OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the 
OSX-type, where each application is actually a folder containing the 
binary and all its resources. This is great because it allows to install 
an application by drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and 
the application folder looks like a plain executable on which one can 
double-click to launch LyX.


JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:
 25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:

 ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
 binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
 /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx


 Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
 take care of this?


 Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
 If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open myfile.lyx.

 OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
 where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
 its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
 drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
 looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.

Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.

Scott

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx



Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?



Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open myfile.lyx.

OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.


Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.


I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a 
couple weeks ago.


If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, 
open the Applications folder.  Right click on the application you are 
interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. 
Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management 
operations you usually.


To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this.  But danged if I 
remember what the issue was.  :-(


One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder 
does not remove all files associated with the application.  Depending on 
the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all 
users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the 
application.  Those files get left behind if you simply remove the 
application from the Applications folder.  You can manually search for 
the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them.  I use 
a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files.  A couple 
of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Wolfgang Keller]

 You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download
 and run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally
 state, AS IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Its usually printed all or in part in all
 captial letters.

And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN
UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT.
 
;-

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Bruce Pourciau]

On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

 25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer:
 Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in
 the long run?
 
 It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, although 
 at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the fact that we 
 continue to advance in a time where the number of active and enthusiastic 
 developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust project. Having 3 more 
 active developers (I mean good enough to avoid generating random code that 
 will take years to clean up) is the most we need probably.
 
 What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer 
 app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready to 
 make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough to 
 entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.
 
 JMarc


For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need 
or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other 
app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, 
cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect 
partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful 
pdf's, and it's solid as a rock.

A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers.

Bruce

Re: why people give up on open source software

[David L. Johnson]

On 10/25/2013 11:12 AM, Bruce Pourciau wrote:
For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed 
any need or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt 
with any other app. I write long, structured papers that contain 
mathematics, figures, cross-references, and bibliographic citations, 
and LyX has been the perfect partner and document processor. It does 
everything I need, produces beautiful pdf's, and it's solid as a rock. 
A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers. Bruce 

Absolutely!

--

David L. Johnson

And what if you track down these men and kill them, what if you killed
all of us?  From every corner of Europe, hundreds, thousands would
rise up to take our places.  Even Nazis can't kill that fast.
-- Paul Henreid (Casablanca).

Re: why people give up on open source software

[John O'Gorman]

On 26/10/13 04:12, Bruce Pourciau wrote:

On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:


For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need 
or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other 
app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, 
cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect 
partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful 
pdf's, and it's solid as a rock.

A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers.

Bruce


I second that.
I've used LyX since its beginning.
It is the best software ever written (apart possibly from Unix/Linux).
I use it for all my document production.

John O'Gorman

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Bryan Baldwin]

  
  
On 10/26/2013 02:08 AM, Wolfgang Keller
  wrote:


  And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN
UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT.



That's backwards. Its part of the solution. It doesn't matter if you
read it or not, because it applies whether you read it or not.

-- 
  
  



0xCCE82347.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys


signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 12:55:37 -0600
Richard Talley rich.tal...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
 wrote:
 
 
  I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an
  impression of mass exodus.  Just my pulling back from the
  potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing
  a good job of meeting.  I think Canonical is making that effort,
  but I have no feel as to their success. Someday, when I'm rich but
  not famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux.
  Personally, I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going
  with the operating systems.  AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee
  of the cloud idea for personal use.
 
  I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option
  to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users.  I think this
  should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based
  phones.  I am a fan of competition, of which there is little
  today.  But I think the attitudes of many in the open source
  community may be undermining that opportunity.
 
 
 The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I
 was frustrated. 

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! The subject line (as opposed to the
body, which was just a typical problem), sent my blood pressure up to
220 over 180. Now I'm glad to hear it was just frustration. Heck, when
it comes to frustration, nobody can top the inappropriate tone of my
2008 Why oh why did you get rid of Xforms LyX-List post.

So if I criticized you based on a post you sent in frustration, I'd be
the worlds biggest hypocrite.

 My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's
 gotten out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and
 structure of my documents, just what it was designed to do.
 
 In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded
 working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of
 the majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically
 interesting, but just tools to get some work done. The response to
 this is often an exhortation to them to learn about their computers,
 an attitude that there's something lacking in those who don't. 
 But
 I've known any number of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers
 whose cognitive loads are already high enough that telling them that
 they need to gain an intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar
 too high. They want their computers to just work, the way the other
 appliances in their lives do. 

Maaan, did you open a can of worms with the preceding sentence. How
often do appliances just work, and what is the relationship between
the richness of the appliances' feature set and its just works
capabilities?

Now it's true of toasters, at least the oldschool kind. You plug it in,
you set it to light or dark, put in the bread, push the thing down, and
your toast pops up five minutes later. When it stops functioning the
way you expect, you bring ten bucks to Walmart and buy another one. Of
course, toasters do exactly one thing.

Move up the ladder a step to today's toaster ovens. We've had three of
them in five years. Electronic or computer failure. They just work
for a limited time, and then you spend sixty five bucks for another
one. Toaster ovens do lots of stuff, as long as you define lots of stuff
as roasting/baking in a small, computer controlled oven, whose controls
you set.

Up once more to your refrigerator. This is typically between $500 and
$1700, so you don't throw it out when it doesn't just work. And if
your life is anything like mine, refrigerators don't just work for
very long, then you bring in the refrigerator repairman. And here's
where consumers start to diverge, depending on their degree of DIY'ness.

When the refrigerator repairman comes to my house, I watch what he
does. I notice his first step is to vacuum out under the refrigerator
and everywhere that could restrict airflow to the fridge's coils. That
fixes a heck of a lot of it's not cold enough complaints. I notice he
thoroughly checks the rubber gaskets, because those are a common cause
of not cold enough and frosting up. And I ask him how to keep those
gaskets in good shape, and he tells me to close the doors tight, and if
anything prevents that, rearrange. I asked the refrigerator repairman
why the icemaker sometimes stops making ice, and he told me about
permanently frozen ice chunks in the ice collector telling the sensor
that the collector is full --- take those pieces out. I found out from
him how to replace the water filter. Hey, I'd like my fridge to just
work, but they seldom just work well for very long, so in self
defense I vacuum, close tight, de-ice the ice collector, don't fill the
thing too tight, and change the water filter when necessary.

That way I have a lot less visits from the repairman than the it's
gotta work and I don't want to lift a finger crowd. And those guys
have to put up with scheduling the 

To Quit, or Not To Quit

[gordon_cooper]

(With an apology to Will Shakespeare.)

Proposed by  Alan, Seconded by Liviu, That I do not quit.

After a night's sleep and time to think, I accept Alan's proposal.
Thank you gentlemen.

I will stay, but for how long is probably out of my hands. I was
teaching digital and solid state basics in the early 1960's, so
that my time left on earth to work with Lyx, or anything else
for that matter, is definitely limited.

May I make two comments about this group.

1.  Alan said that this group is one of the friendliest around,
 I agree.  However, I think that any newcomer, joining in the
 middle of the recent acrimonious discussion,  might well be
 frightened away.

2.  There are far too many repeats. There is no need to regurgitate
 all of a previous post when replying. A few words or a couple of
 lines should be all that is necessary to define the subject under
 discussion. Too many people merely click on the Reply button,
 resulting in posts that are far too long.  Current computer based
 composition methods include easy editing. Why not use it?

I should make another comment. I 'own' a computer group -
most of them  'distaff ' members, who use a fairly specialised
CAD programme for design with fabrics and fibres. One of the
rules is No lengthy repetitions.  Offenders get a friendly
caution.  Persistent regurgitators are placed on moderation,
meaning that their posts have to be approved before reaching
the list.   This system works.

Remember that there are some parts of this planet where users
are still on dial-up. Repeats serve no purpose and cost them money.

Cheers,
Gordon,
Tauranga N.Z.

Re: Why People Give Up on Groups.

[Liviu Andronic]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 6:04 AM, Alan L Tyree alanty...@gmail.com wrote:

 gordon_cooper writes:

 Hello to all,
 I have been a Lyx user for a year or so and regarded
 this Group as place to find help.  I am saddened to see it descend
 into a slanging session.

 I quit,
 Gordon
 New Zealand

 Don't let one bad thread drive you away, Gordon. Mostly the list is one
 of the friendliest around as well as being one of the most helpful.

Seconded.

Liviu


 Cheers,
 Alan


 --
 Alan L Tyree   http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
 Tel:  04 2748 6206 sip:172...@iptel.org



-- 
Do you know how to read?
http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
Do you know how to write?
http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer:

Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in
the long run?


It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, 
although at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the 
fact that we continue to advance in a time where the number of active 
and enthusiastic developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust 
project. Having 3 more active developers (I mean good enough to avoid 
generating random code that will take years to clean up) is the most we 
need probably.


What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of 
killer app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of 
users ready to make some investment in learning time. Having people who 
trust LyX enough to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.


JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak:

I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the
problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from
the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export
your .lyx file to a pdf with

   lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx 
binary. From the top of my head, it is at

/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx

JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 3:53 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:
 25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak:

 I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the
 problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from
 the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export
 your .lyx file to a pdf with

lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx


 ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary.
 From the top of my head, it is at
 /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx

Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?

Scott

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Liviu Andronic]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:
 What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer
 app,

..which LyX already is. I like the gasp of people, who have been
inflicted with LaTeX, when I show them how easy and straightforward it
is to create document and get a PDF output with LyX by simply pushing
the magic  button. They also seem to go nuts about the table editing
feature in LyX; a colleague told me that she could never manage to
understand how to deal with tables in LaTeX, so she was doing the
tables in Word and then inserted them in .tex as a screenshot.


 but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready
 to make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough
 to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.

Indeed.

Liviu

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:

... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary.
 From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx


Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?


Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command 
line. If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open 
myfile.lyx.


OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the 
OSX-type, where each application is actually a folder containing the 
binary and all its resources. This is great because it allows to install 
an application by drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and 
the application folder looks like a plain executable on which one can 
double-click to launch LyX.


JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:
 25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:

 ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
 binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
 /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx


 Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
 take care of this?


 Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
 If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open myfile.lyx.

 OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
 where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
 its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
 drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
 looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.

Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.

Scott

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx



Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?



Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open myfile.lyx.

OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.


Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.


I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a 
couple weeks ago.


If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, 
open the Applications folder.  Right click on the application you are 
interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. 
Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management 
operations you usually.


To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this.  But danged if I 
remember what the issue was.  :-(


One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder 
does not remove all files associated with the application.  Depending on 
the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all 
users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the 
application.  Those files get left behind if you simply remove the 
application from the Applications folder.  You can manually search for 
the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them.  I use 
a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files.  A couple 
of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Wolfgang Keller]

 You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download
 and run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally
 state, AS IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Its usually printed all or in part in all
 captial letters.

And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN
UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT.
 
;-

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Bruce Pourciau]

On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

 25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer:
 Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in
 the long run?
 
 It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, although 
 at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the fact that we 
 continue to advance in a time where the number of active and enthusiastic 
 developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust project. Having 3 more 
 active developers (I mean good enough to avoid generating random code that 
 will take years to clean up) is the most we need probably.
 
 What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer 
 app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready to 
 make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough to 
 entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.
 
 JMarc


For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need 
or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other 
app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, 
cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect 
partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful 
pdf's, and it's solid as a rock.

A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers.

Bruce

Re: why people give up on open source software

[David L. Johnson]

On 10/25/2013 11:12 AM, Bruce Pourciau wrote:
For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed 
any need or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt 
with any other app. I write long, structured papers that contain 
mathematics, figures, cross-references, and bibliographic citations, 
and LyX has been the perfect partner and document processor. It does 
everything I need, produces beautiful pdf's, and it's solid as a rock. 
A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers. Bruce 

Absolutely!

--

David L. Johnson

And what if you track down these men and kill them, what if you killed
all of us?  From every corner of Europe, hundreds, thousands would
rise up to take our places.  Even Nazis can't kill that fast.
-- Paul Henreid (Casablanca).

Re: why people give up on open source software

[John O'Gorman]

On 26/10/13 04:12, Bruce Pourciau wrote:

On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:


For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need 
or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other 
app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, 
cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect 
partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful 
pdf's, and it's solid as a rock.

A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers.

Bruce


I second that.
I've used LyX since its beginning.
It is the best software ever written (apart possibly from Unix/Linux).
I use it for all my document production.

John O'Gorman

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Bryan Baldwin]

  
  
On 10/26/2013 02:08 AM, Wolfgang Keller
  wrote:


  And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN
UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT.



That's backwards. Its part of the solution. It doesn't matter if you
read it or not, because it applies whether you read it or not.

-- 
  
  



0xCCE82347.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys


signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 12:55:37 -0600
Richard Talley rich.tal...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
 wrote:
 
 
  I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an
  impression of mass exodus.  Just my pulling back from the
  potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing
  a good job of meeting.  I think Canonical is making that effort,
  but I have no feel as to their success. Someday, when I'm rich but
  not famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux.
  Personally, I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going
  with the operating systems.  AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee
  of the cloud idea for personal use.
 
  I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option
  to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users.  I think this
  should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based
  phones.  I am a fan of competition, of which there is little
  today.  But I think the attitudes of many in the open source
  community may be undermining that opportunity.
 
 
 The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I
 was frustrated. 

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! The subject line (as opposed to the
body, which was just a typical problem), sent my blood pressure up to
220 over 180. Now I'm glad to hear it was just frustration. Heck, when
it comes to frustration, nobody can top the inappropriate tone of my
2008 Why oh why did you get rid of Xforms LyX-List post.

So if I criticized you based on a post you sent in frustration, I'd be
the worlds biggest hypocrite.

 My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's
 gotten out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and
 structure of my documents, just what it was designed to do.
 
 In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded
 working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of
 the majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically
 interesting, but just tools to get some work done. The response to
 this is often an exhortation to them to learn about their computers,
 an attitude that there's something lacking in those who don't. 
 But
 I've known any number of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers
 whose cognitive loads are already high enough that telling them that
 they need to gain an intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar
 too high. They want their computers to just work, the way the other
 appliances in their lives do. 

Maaan, did you open a can of worms with the preceding sentence. How
often do appliances just work, and what is the relationship between
the richness of the appliances' feature set and its just works
capabilities?

Now it's true of toasters, at least the oldschool kind. You plug it in,
you set it to light or dark, put in the bread, push the thing down, and
your toast pops up five minutes later. When it stops functioning the
way you expect, you bring ten bucks to Walmart and buy another one. Of
course, toasters do exactly one thing.

Move up the ladder a step to today's toaster ovens. We've had three of
them in five years. Electronic or computer failure. They just work
for a limited time, and then you spend sixty five bucks for another
one. Toaster ovens do lots of stuff, as long as you define lots of stuff
as roasting/baking in a small, computer controlled oven, whose controls
you set.

Up once more to your refrigerator. This is typically between $500 and
$1700, so you don't throw it out when it doesn't just work. And if
your life is anything like mine, refrigerators don't just work for
very long, then you bring in the refrigerator repairman. And here's
where consumers start to diverge, depending on their degree of DIY'ness.

When the refrigerator repairman comes to my house, I watch what he
does. I notice his first step is to vacuum out under the refrigerator
and everywhere that could restrict airflow to the fridge's coils. That
fixes a heck of a lot of it's not cold enough complaints. I notice he
thoroughly checks the rubber gaskets, because those are a common cause
of not cold enough and frosting up. And I ask him how to keep those
gaskets in good shape, and he tells me to close the doors tight, and if
anything prevents that, rearrange. I asked the refrigerator repairman
why the icemaker sometimes stops making ice, and he told me about
permanently frozen ice chunks in the ice collector telling the sensor
that the collector is full --- take those pieces out. I found out from
him how to replace the water filter. Hey, I'd like my fridge to just
work, but they seldom just work well for very long, so in self
defense I vacuum, close tight, de-ice the ice collector, don't fill the
thing too tight, and change the water filter when necessary.

That way I have a lot less visits from the repairman than the it's
gotta work and I don't want to lift a finger crowd. And those guys
have to put up with scheduling the 

To Quit, or Not To Quit

[gordon_cooper]

(With an apology to Will Shakespeare.)

Proposed by  Alan, Seconded by Liviu, That I do not quit.

After a night's sleep and time to think, I accept Alan's proposal.
Thank you gentlemen.

I will stay, but for how long is probably out of my hands. I was
teaching digital and solid state basics in the early 1960's, so
that my time left on earth to work with Lyx, or anything else
for that matter, is definitely limited.

May I make two comments about this group.

1.  Alan said that this group is one of the friendliest around,
 I agree.  However, I think that any newcomer, joining in the
 middle of the recent acrimonious discussion,  might well be
 frightened away.

2.  There are far too many repeats. There is no need to regurgitate
 all of a previous post when replying. A few words or a couple of
 lines should be all that is necessary to define the subject under
 discussion. Too many people merely click on the Reply button,
 resulting in posts that are far too long.  Current computer based
 composition methods include easy editing. Why not use it?

I should make another comment. I 'own' a computer group -
most of them  'distaff ' members, who use a fairly specialised
CAD programme for design with fabrics and fibres. One of the
rules is No lengthy repetitions.  Offenders get a friendly
caution.  Persistent regurgitators are placed on moderation,
meaning that their posts have to be approved before reaching
the list.   This system works.

Remember that there are some parts of this planet where users
are still on dial-up. Repeats serve no purpose and cost them money.

Cheers,
Gordon,
Tauranga N.Z.

Re: Why People Give Up on Groups.

[Liviu Andronic]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 6:04 AM, Alan L Tyree  wrote:
>
> gordon_cooper writes:
>
>> Hello to all,
>> I have been a Lyx user for a year or so and regarded
>> this Group as place to find help.  I am saddened to see it descend
>> into a slanging session.
>>
>> I quit,
>> Gordon
>> New Zealand
>
> Don't let one bad thread drive you away, Gordon. Mostly the list is one
> of the friendliest around as well as being one of the most helpful.
>
Seconded.

Liviu


> Cheers,
> Alan
>
>
> --
> Alan L Tyree   http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
> Tel:  04 2748 6206 sip:172...@iptel.org



-- 
Do you know how to read?
http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
Do you know how to write?
http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer:

Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in
the long run?


It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, 
although at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the 
fact that we continue to advance in a time where the number of active 
and enthusiastic developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust 
project. Having 3 more active developers (I mean good enough to avoid 
generating random code that will take years to clean up) is the most we 
need probably.


What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of 
killer app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of 
users ready to make some investment in learning time. Having people who 
trust LyX enough to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.


JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak:

I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the
problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from
the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export
your .lyx file to a pdf with

   lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx 
binary. From the top of my head, it is at

/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx

JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 3:53 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
 wrote:
> 25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak:
>
>> I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the
>> problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from
>> the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export
>> your .lyx file to a pdf with
>>
>>lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx
>
>
> ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary.
> From the top of my head, it is at
> /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx

Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?

Scott

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Liviu Andronic]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
 wrote:
> What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer
> app,
>
..which LyX already is. I like the gasp of people, who have been
inflicted with LaTeX, when I show them how easy and straightforward it
is to create document and get a PDF output with LyX by simply pushing
the magic  button. They also seem to go nuts about the table editing
feature in LyX; a colleague told me that she could never manage to
understand how to deal with tables in LaTeX, so she was doing the
tables in Word and then inserted them in .tex as a screenshot.


> but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready
> to make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough
> to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.
>
Indeed.

Liviu

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:

... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary.
 From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx


Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?


Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command 
line. If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open 
myfile.lyx".


OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the 
OSX-type, where each application is actually a folder containing the 
binary and all its resources. This is great because it allows to install 
an application by drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and 
the application folder looks like a plain executable on which one can 
double-click to launch LyX.


JMarc

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
 wrote:
> 25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:
>
>>> ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
>>> binary.
>>>  From the top of my head, it is at
>>> /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
>> take care of this?
>
>
> Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
> If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open myfile.lyx".
>
> OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
> where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
> its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
> drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
> looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.

Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.

Scott

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
 wrote:

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx



Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?



Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open myfile.lyx".

OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.


Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.


I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a 
couple weeks ago.


If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, 
open the Applications folder.  Right click on the application you are 
interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. 
Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management 
operations you usually.


To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this.  But danged if I 
remember what the issue was.  :-(


One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder 
does not remove all files associated with the application.  Depending on 
the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all 
users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the 
application.  Those files get left behind if you simply remove the 
application from the Applications folder.  You can manually search for 
the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them.  I use 
a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files.  A couple 
of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Wolfgang Keller]

> You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download
> and run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally
> state, "AS IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
> PARTICULAR PURPOSE". Its usually printed all or in part in all
> captial letters.

And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN
UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT.
 
>;->

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Bruce Pourciau]

On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

> 25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer:
>> Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in
>> the long run?
> 
> It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, although 
> at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the fact that we 
> continue to advance in a time where the number of active and enthusiastic 
> developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust project. Having 3 more 
> active developers (I mean good enough to avoid generating random code that 
> will take years to clean up) is the most we need probably.
> 
> What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer 
> app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready to 
> make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough to 
> entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success.
> 
> JMarc


For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need 
or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other 
app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, 
cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect 
partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful 
pdf's, and it's solid as a rock.

A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers.

Bruce

Re: why people give up on open source software

[David L. Johnson]

On 10/25/2013 11:12 AM, Bruce Pourciau wrote:
For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed 
any need or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt 
with any other app. I write long, structured papers that contain 
mathematics, figures, cross-references, and bibliographic citations, 
and LyX has been the perfect partner and document processor. It does 
everything I need, produces beautiful pdf's, and it's solid as a rock. 
A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers. Bruce 

Absolutely!

--

David L. Johnson

And what if you track down these men and kill them, what if you killed
all of us?  From every corner of Europe, hundreds, thousands would
rise up to take our places.  Even Nazis can't kill that fast.
-- Paul Henreid (Casablanca).

Re: why people give up on open source software

[John O'Gorman]

On 26/10/13 04:12, Bruce Pourciau wrote:

On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:


For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need 
or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other 
app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, 
cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect 
partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful 
pdf's, and it's solid as a rock.

A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers.

Bruce


I second that.
I've used LyX since its beginning.
It is the best software ever written (apart possibly from Unix/Linux).
I use it for all my document production.

John O'Gorman

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Bryan Baldwin]

  
  
On 10/26/2013 02:08 AM, Wolfgang Keller
  wrote:


  And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN
UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT.



That's backwards. Its part of the solution. It doesn't matter if you
read it or not, because it applies whether you read it or not.

-- 
  
  



0xCCE82347.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys


signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 12:55:37 -0600
Richard Talley  wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an
> > impression of "mass exodus".  Just my pulling back from the
> > potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing
> > a good job of meeting.  I think Canonical is making that effort,
> > but I have no feel as to their success. Someday, when I'm rich but
> > not famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux.
> > Personally, I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going
> > with the operating systems.  AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee
> > of the cloud idea for personal use.
> >
> > I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option
> > to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users.  I think this
> > should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based
> > phones.  I am a fan of competition, of which there is little
> > today.  But I think the attitudes of many in the open source
> > community may be undermining that opportunity.
> >
> >
> The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I
> was frustrated. 

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! The subject line (as opposed to the
body, which was just a typical problem), sent my blood pressure up to
220 over 180. Now I'm glad to hear it was just frustration. Heck, when
it comes to frustration, nobody can top the inappropriate tone of my
2008 "Why oh why did you get rid of Xforms" LyX-List post.

So if I criticized you based on a post you sent in frustration, I'd be
the worlds biggest hypocrite.

> My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's
> gotten out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and
> structure of my documents, just what it was designed to do.
> 
> In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded
> working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of
> the majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically
> interesting, but just tools to get some work done. The response to
> this is often an exhortation to them to learn about their computers,
> an attitude that there's something lacking in those who don't. 
> But
> I've known any number of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers
> whose cognitive loads are already high enough that telling them that
> they need to gain an intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar
> too high. They want their computers to just work, the way the other
> appliances in their lives do. 

Maaan, did you open a can of worms with the preceding sentence. How
often do appliances "just work", and what is the relationship between
the richness of the appliances' feature set and its "just works"
capabilities?

Now it's true of toasters, at least the oldschool kind. You plug it in,
you set it to light or dark, put in the bread, push the thing down, and
your toast pops up five minutes later. When it stops functioning the
way you expect, you bring ten bucks to Walmart and buy another one. Of
course, toasters do exactly one thing.

Move up the ladder a step to today's toaster ovens. We've had three of
them in five years. Electronic or computer failure. They "just work"
for a limited time, and then you spend sixty five bucks for another
one. Toaster ovens do lots of stuff, as long as you define lots of stuff
as roasting/baking in a small, computer controlled oven, whose controls
you set.

Up once more to your refrigerator. This is typically between $500 and
$1700, so you don't throw it out when it doesn't "just work". And if
your life is anything like mine, refrigerators don't "just work" for
very long, then you bring in the refrigerator repairman. And here's
where consumers start to diverge, depending on their degree of DIY'ness.

When the refrigerator repairman comes to my house, I watch what he
does. I notice his first step is to vacuum out under the refrigerator
and everywhere that could restrict airflow to the fridge's coils. That
fixes a heck of a lot of "it's not cold enough" complaints. I notice he
thoroughly checks the rubber gaskets, because those are a common cause
of "not cold enough" and frosting up. And I ask him how to keep those
gaskets in good shape, and he tells me to close the doors tight, and if
anything prevents that, rearrange. I asked the refrigerator repairman
why the icemaker sometimes stops making ice, and he told me about
permanently frozen ice chunks in the ice collector telling the sensor
that the collector is full --- take those pieces out. I found out from
him how to replace the water filter. Hey, I'd like my fridge to "just
work", but they seldom "just work" well for very long, so in self
defense I vacuum, close tight, de-ice the ice collector, don't fill the
thing too tight, and change the water filter when necessary.

That way I have a lot less visits from the repairman than the "it's
gotta work and I don't 

To Quit, or Not To Quit

[gordon_cooper]

(With an apology to Will Shakespeare.)

Proposed by  Alan, Seconded by Liviu, That I do not quit.

After a night's sleep and time to think, I accept Alan's proposal.
Thank you gentlemen.

I will stay, but for how long is probably out of my hands. I was
teaching digital and solid state basics in the early 1960's, so
that my time left on earth to work with Lyx, or anything else
for that matter, is definitely limited.

May I make two comments about this group.

1.  Alan said that this group is "one of the friendliest around",
 I agree.  However, I think that any newcomer, joining in the
 middle of the recent acrimonious discussion,  might well be
 frightened away.

2.  There are far too many repeats. There is no need to regurgitate
 all of a previous post when replying. A few words or a couple of
 lines should be all that is necessary to define the subject under
 discussion. Too many people merely click on the Reply button,
 resulting in posts that are far too long.  Current computer based
 composition methods include easy editing. Why not use it?

I should make another comment. I 'own' a computer group -
most of them  'distaff ' members, who use a fairly specialised
CAD programme for design with fabrics and fibres. One of the
rules is "No lengthy repetitions".  Offenders get a friendly
caution.  Persistent regurgitators are placed on moderation,
meaning that their posts have to be approved before reaching
the list.   This system works.

Remember that there are some parts of this planet where users
are still on dial-up. Repeats serve no purpose and cost them money.

Cheers,
Gordon,
Tauranga N.Z.