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Conference vaxuum::document_ft

Title:DOCUMENT T1.0
Notice:**New notesfile (DOCUMENT.NOTE) now available (see note 897)**
Moderator:CLOSET::ADLER
Created:Mon Feb 09 1987
Last Modified:Thu Oct 31 1991
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:897
Total number of notes:4397

412.0. "I'm sure it'll make sense if you 'splain it" by OASS::M_HYDE (Who is John Galt?) Fri May 22 1987 09:49

        For one who is unfamiliar the technical nitty gritty of
        DOCUMENT, TEX, SDML and all those other good terms I'm learning
        here - (but one who does love the product, I too can create
        sooper-dooper looking documents!) -  is there a semi-technical
        description of DOCUMENT somewhere that includes how TEX and the
        tag translator etc. fit in? 
        
        I'm looking for the kind of information to use when describing
        the product to someone else and they comment that TEX is
        supposedly public domain or something and how can we sell
        it as a product etc.
        
        I didn't find anything useful in the one page marketing blurb
        that I've seen.
        
        thanks,
        mark 'amateur DOCUMENT salesperson and cheerleader'
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
412.1TOKLAS::FELDMANPDS, our next successFri May 22 1987 11:2521
    According to Knuth's "TeX: The Program", the program is indeed in
    the public domain.
    
    However, it is a common misconception that you're not allowed to sell
    something that is in the public domain.  All that public domain means
    is that you can't get copyright protection for a work.  If you own a
    copy of a public domain work, and someone else is willing to spend
    money to buy that copy from you, there's nothing wrong in that.
    Think of all the works of Shakespeare; they are in the public domain,
    yet publishers continue to make money selling copies.  If someone
    wants just TeX, they could buy DOCUMENT from us, or they could get
    free copy from somewhere else -- the choice is theirs.
    
    Perhaps the real question is how can we expect people to buy it? The
    answer is all the added value: the SDML processor, the integration of
    TeX into Document, the much improved handling of TeX errors, and all
    the support services that are available to Document customers. 
    Most especially, SDML is an order of magnitude easier to learn than
    TeX.
    
       Gary
412.2not all TeXs are identical in their heartsCLOSET::DEVRIESThose are features, not bugsFri May 22 1987 13:1013
    >     Perhaps the real question is how can we expect people to buy it? The
    > answer is all the added value: the SDML processor, the integration of
    > TeX into Document, the much improved handling of TeX errors, and all
    > the support services that are available to Document customers. 
    
    And, at a more basic level, our TeX is not *exactly* the same as
    "public-domain" TeX.  All TeX programs are required to pass certain
    functional tests to be called "TeX".  However, we have value added
    even to TeX itself --  bug fixes, message handling, a callable
    interface, and probably things I don't know about -- so even our
    text formatter is "a TeX" but not exactly "Stanford TeX".
    
    Mark
412.3CLOSET::ADLERWed May 27 1987 20:2315
>    And, at a more basic level, our TeX is not *exactly* the same as
>    "public-domain" TeX.  All TeX programs are required to pass certain
>    functional tests to be called "TeX".  However, we have value added
>    even to TeX itself --  bug fixes, message handling, a callable
>    interface, and probably things I don't know about -- so even our
>    text formatter is "a TeX" but not exactly "Stanford TeX".

In fact, we have so modified the user interface to TeX that we don't pass
the test anymore! Accordingly, we don't mention TeX in any of our documentation.

(The %TEX error messages can be thought of as a 3-letter abbreviation for
 "text formatter" (fortunately! (-:)).

--Brian