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