bobc@tikal.UUCP (01/30/87)
In article <653@uw-warp.UUCP> dennis@uw-warp.UUCP (Dennis Gentry) writes: >I don't think TeX is public domain. And I don't think there are >multiple authors, at least not for the single program "TeX," which was >written by Donald E. Knuth.... TeX is not exactly public domain, but it is very close. The code is free and you can do anything you want with it except that if you give anyone a part of the source you must give them all of the source. There are no general restrictions and what you can do with the TeX program as generated by the source. I feel that $600 is too much for the general TeX program, but then that is not what they should be charging for anyway. The $600 also gives you the support tools to use TeX as a application on the Mac. $600 is I feel a little steep, and I would like to see a version of TeX that runs under MPW as a tool (and then a "TeX previewer" could also be written as a tool). The reason for using MPW is that it is a very (maybe not perfect) editor which can easily be extended (via MPW tools). Disclaimer: I have never seen TeXtures, or any of the other Mac ports of TeX. All my comments are based on the following note that is with the distribution of TeX that I have access to. ********************************************************************* The rules for copying are: This tape contains TeX82, version 1.5. The original copy was written on Wed Jan 8 09:53:10 PST 1986 This file is ./tex82/COPYING.POLICY [several reasons for the policy... Deleted to save space] Our requirements for redistributed copies are therefore as follows: 1. Copies must be complete. All files appearing on this tape must also be provided on the copy. If any changes have been made to any of the files, these changes must be identified in a separate notice. A complete list of all files on this tape is found at the end of this notice. 2. The file containing this notice (./tex82/COPYING.POLICY), the file ./tex82/README, and the file ./tex82/SCORE-README must be included, unchanged, in all copies. 3. Sites receiving copies from you must be made aware of the copyright restrictions on parts of the distribution. The TeX source of the TeXBook is included in the distribution. Since it is copyrighted by the American Mathematical Society (1983) and has been published by Addison-Wesley, you may not reproduce the TeXbook in any way. The source is intended to be used only to help you test your TeX port. 4. You may not charge a fee for making the copy. Relevant addresses are as follows: (Unix TeX Site Coordinators) Richard Furuta Pierre MacKay Computer Science Computer Science, FR-35 University of Maryland University of Washington College Park, MD 20740 Seattle, WA 98195 (TeX Users Group) TeX Users Group c/o American Mathematical Society P.O. Box 6248 Providence, Rhode Island 02940 ********************************************************************* Bob Campbell Teltone Corporation 18520 - 66th AVE NE P.O. Box 657 Seattle, WA 98155 Kirkland, WA 98033 bobc@tikal.teltone.com {amc,dataio,fluke,hplsla,sunup,uw-beaver}!tikal!bobc tikal!bobc@beaver.cs.washington.EDU
munson@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (01/30/87)
I have lost track of who originally complained about the cost of Addison-Wesley's version of TeX, but it is to him and the other folks who complain about the high service charges/profits for public domain and free distribution programs that I wish to respond. I don't understand why you think operations like Addison-Wesley are doing something wrong when they ask a high price for a product like TeX. I can think of many reasons that $600 is a fair price, from a business standpoint. However, it's quite possible that A-W is clearing $250 a unit and laughing all the way to the bank. I think Apple has a profit margin that approaches that level on the Mac+. Personally, that doesn't bother me at all. A-W is not a public trust. They are a profit-motivated enterprise and if they make lots of profit that's good for them. If their price for TeX is too high for me, I won't buy it. I don't think they owe me a copy at the price I consider "right". Am I missing something? It seems to me that Knuth is a man of great intelligence who would have made his copyright tighter if he had wanted to prevent someone from charging prices that high. Therefore, I presume that the current situation doesn't violate his wishes. If you really want a cheaper version, you might write A-W, telling them what price you would buy it at. That probably won't do much unless you get lots of others to do the same. You could also encourage others to write cheaper versions. I guess I get a sense of moral outrage from these comments on price of software. I don't understand it because I don't think we were promised "fair" prices. Ethan Munson munson@ernie.berkeley.edu
kishore2@watdcsu.UUCP (02/02/87)
I was always under the impression that the main portion of the cost was for the drivers and not for TeX itself. If I'm mistaken perhaps someone could correct me on this?
turnera@hubcap.UUCP (Allen Turner) (07/22/87)
We are in the process of evaluating two different pc implementations of TEX as an alternative to our existing technical word processing system. We like the packages but there is a notable lack of documentation with these packages aimed at the novice. We have been using the TEXbook to get started but we feel that it is really intended as a reference and is not a good choice for beginners. Are there any good books, other than the TEXbook, LaTEX book etc., aimed at introducing beginners to TEX without delving to deeply into all of TEX's capabilities? We feel that we need to have such a book available if TEX is ever going to be widely used here. Many thanks, Allen Turner
David_J_Buerger@cup.portal.com (07/25/87)
Two good introductory booklets on TeX are: First Grade TeX: A Beginner's Manual by Arthur L. Samuel Stanford Dept. of Computer Science November 1983, Report No. STAN-CS-83-985 CalTeX: Using TeX With The Plain Macro Package, etc. by Daniel M. Zirin, Chemistry Computing Services, Caltech $10.00 email to Zar@citchem.bitnet An Introduction to LaTeX, by Michael Urban, is available through the TeX Users Group, P.O. Box 9506, Providence, RI 02940 (401) 272-9500, x 232 I am writing a similar, but more comprehensive beginner's manual for LaTeX. David J. Buerger dbuerger@scu.bitnet ...!psuvax!scu.bitnet!dbuerger (uucp)
andersnb@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (Brian Anderson) (11/10/87)
A while ago I saw a posting by someone asking about "common Tex". I
have been looking for a copy of Tex for my pc for some time, but have
been unsuccesful. The posting mentioned sources! Is this common Tex
public domain? If it is would someone mail me a copy of the sources. If
it is a commercial product, where do I write to get information?
Thanks
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Brian G. Anderson |
NYU Ultracomputer Research Project |||
715 Broadway Rm. 1006 |||||
New York, NY 10003 |||||
(212) 998-3346 --- //\ ---
arpa: andersnb@cmcl2 ----/ \----
uucp: {ihnp4,seismo}!cmcl2!andersnb ---- ----rsn@ndmath.UUCP (Ross Niebergall) (03/05/89)
I have some questions about TeX for pc's. First of all, is it available? Next if it is available, is it in the public domain. If it is in the public domain is there somewhere where I can ftp a copy from, or is there at least somewhere where i could get fonts for it via ftp. Any information that you could give me would be greatly appreciated! Ross Niebergall Department of Mathematics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN rsn@ndmath.uucp
16012_3045@uwovax.uwo.ca (Paul Gomme) (03/06/89)
In article <1324@ndmath.UUCP>, rsn@ndmath.UUCP (Ross Niebergall) writes: > I have some questions about TeX for pc's. First of all, is it available? > Next if it is available, is it in the public domain. If it is in the public > domain is there somewhere where I can ftp a copy from, or is there at least > somewhere where i could get fonts for it via ftp. I know that there are also commercial versions available, but I've had success using SBTeX. It's available from SIMTEL20 as PD1:<MSDOS.TEX>SBTEX.ARC. Fonts are available from science.utah.edu (118.110.192.2); there should be some sort of info file which tells you exactly where to find the relevant files.
gm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Greg McGary) (03/06/89)
In article <1324@ndmath.UUCP> rsn@ndmath.UUCP (Ross Niebergall) writes: >I have some questions about TeX for pc's. First of all, is it available? >Next if it is available, is it in the public domain. If it is in the public >domain is there somewhere where I can ftp a copy from, or is there at least >somewhere where i could get fonts for it via ftp. There are two free versions of TeX generally available for MSDOS. They are called DosTeX and SBTeX. Both are ftp'able from simtel20.army.mil [26.0.0.74], in pd1:<msdos.tex>. I've used both extensively, so I recommend that you probably want SBTeX. (even if you did want DosTeX, the version on simtel is sadly not the newest one) SBTeX is two to three times faster (!) than DosTeX. It also uses ~50% less memory, which is significant if you are LaTeXing large documents, you have less than 640K, or you can't live without your favorite TSRs. After you have TeX, you'll want an output driver, and fonts. You can get these from science.utah.edu [128.110.192.2]. aps:<tex.dvi> has source for drivers for many laser-printers. aps:<tex.cm> has font-metric and packed-pixel files at many magnifications 200dpi, 240dpi and 300dpi resolutions. DosTeX comes with fonts and a driver for epson dot-matrix printers. SBTeX comes with a CGA previewer. DVIVGA is a previewer for EGA and VGA displays. It is available in both source and executable form (with fonts) from b.scs.uiuc.edu [??] This is just a thumbnail sketch of what's available. Naturally, you'll have to ftp to each of these sites and peruse the appropriate `readme' files and documentation to figure out how to use all of this stuff. But rest assured, there is a lot of high-quality, freely available TeXware for DOS. -- Greg McGary -- 4201 University Drive #102, Durham, NC 27707 voice: (919) 490-6037 -- {decvax,hplabs,seismo,mcnc}!duke!gm data: (919) 493-5953 -- gm@cs.duke.edu
sridhar@usceast.UUCP (M. A. Sridhar) (03/07/89)
In article <1795@uwovax.uwo.ca> 16012_3045@uwovax.uwo.ca (Paul Gomme) writes: > >I know that there are also commercial versions available, but I've had >success using SBTeX. It's available from SIMTEL20 as >PD1:<MSDOS.TEX>SBTEX.ARC. Fonts are available from science.utah.edu >(118.110.192.2); there should be some sort of info file which tells >you exactly where to find the relevant files. I obtained SBTeX from Simtel20. It seems as if one cannot build preloaded versions of TeX and LaTeX from SBTeX. Is this true? How much of a time penalty is involved when using such non-preloaded versions? If not, how do I build preloaded versions from SBTeX? -- M. A. Sridhar | Department of Computer Science | ncr-sd!ncrcae ! usceast!sridhar (USENET) University of South Carolina | sridhar@cs.scarolina.edu (CSNET) Columbia, SC 29208 | (803) 777-2427 (Ma Bell)
gm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Greg McGary) (03/08/89)
In article <2735@usceast.UUCP> sridhar@usceast.UUCP (M. A. Sridhar) writes: >I obtained SBTeX from Simtel20. It seems as if one cannot build preloaded >versions of TeX and LaTeX from SBTeX. Is this true? How much of a time penalty >is involved when using such non-preloaded versions? If not, how do I build >preloaded versions from SBTeX? No you can't preload with SBTeX, but my experience has been that SBTeX is so fast that it's not worth worrying about any time-penalty. SBTeX loads quickly because of its small-size, and because the .fmt files are designed for rapid loading. There's a disk-space bonus in that you need only one copy of sbtex for use with any of your .fmt files. I use plain.fmt, latex.fmt, and my own hacked gmplain.fmt. I use the MKS toolkit and have these aliases in ksh: alias tex 'sbtex \&plain' alias latex 'sbtex \&lplain' alias gmtex 'sbtex \&gmplain' If you don't use MKS, you can always create batch file `tex.bat' like so: sbtex &plain %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 Don't be put off by SBTeX's lack of preloading. It's so good, it doesn't need it! -- Greg McGary -- 4201 University Drive #102, Durham, NC 27707 voice: (919) 490-6037 -- {decvax,hplabs,seismo,mcnc}!duke!gm data: (919) 493-5953 -- gm@cs.duke.edu
jiang@cvl.umd.edu (Sunny Songnian Jiang) (03/10/89)
I ftp'ed science.utah.edu and found out there was no such files called <tex.dvi> or <tex.cm>, nor such directories. Does anyone out there know what is my problem? Please drop me a mail. jiang@cvl.umd.edu
avogel@ms.uky.edu (Andrew Lee Vogel) (10/26/89)
I'm sure this has been asked a thousand times, but ..., where is the latest greatest version of TeX for msdos, including a previewer for a vga monitor hopefully. Please reply directly to me, I am in need of an ftp address of course. Thanks
CFC2@PSUVM.BITNET (Carl F. Cotner) (11/05/89)
I know this question is asked all the time, but I never see an answer posted: where can I get a good public domain TeX? Carl.