Re: Fwd: Re: Lojban word processor for Windows?

["Robert J. Chassell" <bob@rattlesnake.com>]

David Brookshire Conner <nellardo@concentric.net> wrote:

   Sure, but the point that I was trying to make was that typography and
   orthography was orthogonal to the question of a word processor. 

Yes, they certainly are, or should be.

   And typography, well, I'm a structured markup fiend. Mixing
   typography with word processing seems misguided and encourages lots
   of visually ugly documents...

I am confused here.  Suppose you are writing on cyrillic, Tibetan, 
and latin: do you use structured markup for the different fonts?  I
don't think so.  I suspect you use markup for whether your Tibetan or
Korean `Watch Out!' should be emphasized or not.

Surely, structured markup is orthogonal to what glyphs used for
straight text?


   ... from taking a book from outline to camera-ready form...

Gosh, a voice from out of history. :-)  `Camera-ready' is only one kind
of output format.

For the past couple of decades people I know have read
manuals both online and printed: books go from outline to *two* forms,
one them `camera-ready', the other `display' ready.  The two forms
provide different resolutions, different methods of search, different
portabilities, and so on.  To some extent, each is truly different;
but in other ways, the differences are sufficiently regular that a
single manuscript can be the source for both kinds of output format.


   Um, clearly you prefer GNU Emacs - the Lucid/X Emacs branch has
   supported non-fixed width fonts for years :-)

   Sorry, just had to take the cheap shot in the editor religious wars
   :-)

Oh, I know that.  The problem is and has been for some years strictly
legal:  the Lucid/X Emacs people are unable to obtain the kinds of
disclaimers/assignments that the lawyers I deal with require for wide
spread, safe distribution.

Without such disclaimers/assignments, it is easy for someone to repeat
what has happened in the past, namely to stick some code into a
program that gets used by major companies, then threaten the major
companies.  Some people that tried this in the past got money from
several companies (out of court settlements) until faced in court by
DEC, at which point they lost.  Sure, someone trying this with
Lucid/Xemacs would, we hope, lose because the Xemacs people have got
legally smarter over the years and they have a track record, but the
inclusion decision is still is a question of how much time and money
you want to put into legal questions rather than programming
questions.

Most programmers I know rightfully hate these sorts of legal concern;
or else they pay little attention on account they lack experience and
street smarts.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                  bob@rattlesnake.com
    Rattlesnake Enterprises             http://www.rattlesnake.com