Massimiliano,
I have not read the book and cannot confidently make the
assessment you describe.
I never referred to the content of the book. I pointed out that there is plenty of free documentation for TeXmacs available. I think you can read it and very by yourself that it is quite comprehensive and informative. Indeed until the book was written (i.e. last year) it was the only information available.
I do not know what the main author of
TeXmacs has written in that book. I just outlined what is
considered standard at university level.
I'm not sure what university has to do with that. Joris has written his book in his private capacity as he already stressed.
The book is about how
to use a particular implementation of software.
The book is on how to write good documents with TeXmacs, does not discuss only the specific use of the software (which is already covered by the free user manual and the various tutorials) but how to use it effectively and what are the best practice of document writing. Again Joris do not have to be slave of his decision to make TeXmacs available as a GNU project in other parts of his daily life.
TeXmacs has already a good free manual. I bought the book also to give my appreciation to Joris for all his hard work.
Became aware of TeXmacs around 2013 after a talk by François
Poulain. Have reviewed TeXmacs a number of times since then -
but I could not really recommend it. But do hope to change my
mind about it, because I can see some benefits in using it if
specific criticisms are tackled.
I would be interested in reading your reviews. Are they available somewhere? Where can we learn about these criticisms?
The distribution of a book
relates to its value for readers. An author must accept that a
limited circulation book will not earn much money.
This is not your choice to make. Many book have very small circulation but they are produced for the love of quality and beauty. Is really the price your only issue? I showed you that popular LaTeX books are similarly priced. You didn't commented about it.
Few authors do. Inflating its price as we have seen with Elsevier
and others is a disease that requires eradication. Thusly I
refuse to involve myself in peer-review.for the benefit of
publishers who mistreat readers with vastly inflated prices,
while at the same time campaigning for exclusive legal rights of
exploitation to be granted to them by governments.
Martin, the economy of scientific publications is not a matter involving this mailing list, or about your specific complain about the lack of free documentation for TeXmacs (which I showed you that it is unmotivated).
Be reminded that my discussion with Joris (and which I am glad he
responded directly) went far beyond the development contribution,
elaborating on topics that are at director and institutional
levels. And we have found much agreement and recognition of the
challenges at hand.
If you write on texmacs-dev then other developers/users of TeXmacs are entitled to answer. If you want to address Joris personally use his own mail address. I feel compelled as a supporter of this project to say my word to support Joris' hard work and commitment to free software.
The challenge has no similarities to what has been seen recently
in the software community (vis Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond,
Linus Torvalds). Do not interpret it that way. Neither should I be
associated with Open Source Projects, as it is something I don't
agree with.
I'm sorry but I do not know what you are talking about, I'm quite ignorant in these matters and do not understand your point here.
As Directeur de Recherche, Joris is quite capable of responding
forcefully at unjust criticism as befitting to his position.
I do not see how the daily work of Joris matters here. It should not. He could be a baker or a painter. If you think our work should affect our activity/position in this discussion, I would invite you to disclose analogous informations about you. I'm a university professor myself, for what it matters. But I would have liked to be a restaurant waiter, too.
What I can do is encourage and inspire the world to change some
attitudes, in ways that will make the institutions we work with,
the best they can be.
Together with others, we can work so that true human capabilities
can find _expression_.