[Textures] Textures forever!

[Paul J. Campbell]

I just saw the recent post from Bruno Voisin 
<bvoisin at me.com> and the previous msg from 
"Gordon Lee."

I thus discovered to my surprise that I am again 
getting emails from the Textures mailing list 
(thanks, Gary and Andrew).

I write "Gordon Lee" in quote marks, given that I 
had been told by a friend of Barry Smith's that 
Gordon Lee in fact was a pseudonym for Barry (who 
died last October). Something strange is going on 
here!

Regarding the programs at the Dropbox, I do not 
know anything at all about Intel code, and I 
don't know how to retrieve source code from Intel 
binary code. I also have no idea what the new 
one-line extra file Mail Attachment in the 
package could possibly be doing (is ET calling 
home?).

Bruno's concern that the programs might contain 
malware worried me. However, ignorant as I may be 
about code, even I can use a code editor to 
compare files. I compared the programs from the 
Dropbox site with copies of Textures 2.2.0b19 
(Retina, non-Retina) that had been sent to me in 
April by other members of the list.

What I found is:

Each of the versions of Textures at the Dropbox 
differs at exactly one byte (!!!) from the 
version I already had.

That hardly seems enough of a change to incorporate any malware.

So I tried the version at the Dropbox for 
non-Retina; it works fine on my three-year-old 
MacPro under OS 10.6.8. I do not have access to a 
Retina machine to test the Retina version. I did 
not try deleting the Mail Attachment file to see 
if the program would still work.

I run several malware detection programs (Sophos, 
ClamXav, Symantec Endpoint). They have not 
detected anything suspicious.

In response to previous posts, several 
individuals have expressed "a plea that someone 
rescue the good things in Textures,"  such as 
(per Bruno):

>Textures' Synchronicity has always been more 
>precise than what is now provided by SyncTeX in 
>modern TeX engines. Same for Flash Mode, a very 
>cool and useful feature. If Textures was 
>open-sourced the way Y&Y TeX has been, and the 
>code for Synchronicity and Flash Mode could be 
>adapted to be included in pdfTeX, LuaTeX and 
>XeTeX, that would be great!

David Salamon  <david.salomon at csun.edu> remarked:

>This software is so important to me that I'm 
>willing to pay anything within reason to keep it 
>working.
>It is fast, it allows me to include images in PS 
>and PDF, and its \special command is flexible, 
>well-designed, and much better than that of 
>TeXShop.
>Granted, the user interface is minimal, but even 
>so, Textures is too useful for us to lose.

At least half a dozen respondents have promised 
funding for any such effort, which would include 
purchasing the rights and possibly pursuing 
further development (e.g., the suggestions from 
Bruno above, and/or adaptation to iPad or new 
versions of Mac OS). Reinhard  Diestel 
<ReinhardDiestel at math.uni-hamburg.de> noted

>According to Barbara Beeton, Barry's widow [Dr. 
>Allegra Smith]Š would be quite happy to sell 
>these assets, if only to pay for Barry's medical 
>expenses.
>
>Any sale would have to be subject to the 
>usability of Barry's legacy. I had talked to 
>Barry about the iPad project, and am now in 
>touch about this with the decision makers both 
>at Springer and CUP. If his work can be used to 
>make iOS eBooks, there could be some money for 
>Allegra there that might be substantial. But 
>even a more modest sum put together by 20 or so 
>people like you and me, with access to research 
>grants perhaps, might well be enough to persuade 
>her.
>
>I think we should make Allegra an offer [I omit 
>the figure that he suggested, since that would 
>need to be negotiated depending on details that 
>Dierk Schleicher notes below---Paul C] through 
>an appropriate intermediary such as your 
>contact. She'll be happy to have this over and 
>done with if she doesn't like the subject, and 
>she'll be happier still if that entails some 
>cash for her.
>

Dierk Schleicher 
<d.schleicher at jacobs-university.de> suggests 
(with some slight editing by me)

>[We could ask Dr. Smith] sell us the hardware 
>"as is" at any fair used hardware price for any 
>computers left behind (whatever the devices may 
>be), provided that the hardware and disks are as 
>Barry/Gordon left them.
>The deal could be:
>a) price X in any case;
>b) price Y>X if we manage to get access to the 
>data (that is, succeed in getting around 
>password barriers and manage to put together a 
>system)
>c) price Z>Y>X if some commercial activity comes 
>out of it. (Or price Z' if this becomes a 
>non-commercial open-source project.)
>
>All this can be fixed by contract, and Allegra 
>should understand that there is a community of 
>very faithful Textures users who are very 
>sympathetic to the product and to the people who 
>made it and managed it. These faithful users are 
>interested in  keeping alive Barry's legacy -- 
>and at the same time, helping her pay back some 
>of his medical expenses.

Reinhard Diestel 
<ReinhardDiestel at math.uni-hamburg.de> suggested 
waiting to hear from Barbara Beeton about any 
negotiations that may be going on behind the 
scenes.

I hope to hear news from Barbara (or others) to 
the effect that other negotiations are 
proceeding. Failing that, I think I should follow 
Dierk's advice to contact the friend of Barry 
Smith and see if he would be willing to approach 
Barry's widow about her receptivity to an offer 
along the lines above.

Here is my own take on the whole matter:

---"Gordon Lee"'s post has fulfilled Allegra's 
intention of taking care of users, which she 
tried to do with the original announcement at the 
Blue Sky portal of how users could renew keys. 
The post should be a relief to her, since it 
should get  users off her back and relieve 
whoever owns Blue Sky now of warranty-of-fitness 
obligation for the product (assuming that the 
posted versions work for all (licensed) users).

---Can enough of Barry's plans and source code be 
retrieved to advance further development of 
Textures?

---If there is to be further development of 
Textures, it must not again be a one-person 
operation. Open-source could be a good way to go; 
but is there a large enough group of enthusiastic 
users (there are only 179 on this 
listserve)---and among them enough knowledgeable 
programmer folks---who could contribute to such 
development? Though a number of correspondents 
have indicated to me willingness to finance an 
effort, none has indicated technical proficiency 
to do such work.

---Given TeXShop (caution: also mainly a 
one-person effort; and what is its future?), is 
there really a "need" for continued development 
of Textures?

This listserve---now that it seems to be working 
correctly again---would benefit from more 
contributions to the discussion. So, if you have 
advice or strong feelings, please post.


With many thanks for your continued interest in what has been a superb product,


Paul Campbell
campbell at beloit.edu


--------------------------
P.S. I am sending this msg to the Textures 
mailing list but also to people who may not be on 
it but may be interested, after removing names of 
those who wrote me to request removal. If you get 
this msg and don't want to get any more, let me 
know (and also make sure you are unsubscribed 
from the listserve); if you are already on the 
mailing list and hence get two copies, let me 
know that, too.

=================================

Below is the original msg from "Gordon Lee", for 
the benefit of those not on the mailing list:

>  I remark, as Mark Twain once did, "reports of 
>my death are greatly exaggerated."
>
>  Licensed users of Textures are invited to visit
>
>  https://www.dropbox.com/s/obvww7r9xrq0l5l/Textures220b19.zip
>
>  where they will find versions of Textures (for 
>Retina and non-Retina machines) that
>  work without seeking an installation key (but 
>first read the instructions enclosed in the zip).
>
>  I will not be available for any further 
>development of Textures and will not respond to 
>any messages.
>
>  I must leave it to users to try to ensure that 
>reports of the death of Textures, too, "are 
>greatly exaggerated."
>
>  Textures forever!



-- 

--------------------------------------------------------
Paul J. Campbell
Mathematics and Computer Science
Beloit College
700 College St.
Beloit, WI  53511-5595
USA

ofc:    send email instead
fax:  (608) 363-2052
res:   (608) 362-2805

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