Join Foundation to Support ConTeXt for the next 50 Years
Hello, In order to keep ConTeXt maintained for the very long term future, I am wondering if there a possibility to join a foundation like the Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, etc. Also perhaps more to a more liberal license so there can be commercial use of ConTeXt with some of it trickling to as code contributions, wider usage which may further translate to support and consultancy work for those familiar with ConTeXt. If commercial system uses ConTeXt as part of their system there is a chance that is it is in their best interest to maintain it also long as these systems are in operation. Also perhaps it might be best than just depend on TeX maybe fork TeX and improve it in a ConTeXt dependent way. This way ConTeXt more feature-rich and easier to maintain than carrying the technical burden of TeX. There are system like SILE typesetter (https://sile-typesetter.org/) which are developed from the ground up and also The Tectonic Typesetting System ( https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/). This is just some ideas which I thought might be worthwhile considering. Suminda
On 17/10/20, 10:46, Suminda Sirinath Salpitikorala Dharmasena wrote:
Hello,
In order to keep ConTeXt maintained for the very long term future, I am wondering if there a possibility to join a foundation like the Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, etc.
https://group.contextgarden.net/
Also perhaps more to a more liberal license so there can be commercial use of ConTeXt with some of it trickling to as code contributions, wider usage which may further translate to support and consultancy work for those familiar with ConTeXt. If commercial system uses ConTeXt as part of their system there is a chance that is it is in their best interest to maintain it also long as these systems are in operation.
The main application of ConTeXt is producing PDFs and since these outputs are not “derived works” (using the wording of the GPL), the license terms of ConTeXt do not apply to them. I don't think anyone is actually modifying the ConTeXt core and even then, as long as you don't distribute binaries but only PDFs you don't have to publish the source.
Also perhaps it might be best than just depend on TeX maybe fork TeX and improve it in a ConTeXt dependent way. This way ConTeXt more feature-rich and easier to maintain than carrying the technical burden of TeX. There are system like SILE typesetter (https://sile-typesetter.org/) which are developed from the ground up and also The Tectonic Typesetting System ( https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/).
What are you even talking about? ConTeXt has been using a forked TeX engine for at least a decade. LuaTeX is solely developed by and for the ConTeXt people. BTW, SILE is something completely different (and can't do math yet) and Tectonic is just a thin wrapper around XeTeX. Cheers, Henri
This is just some ideas which I thought might be worthwhile considering.
Suminda
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participants (2)
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Henri Menke -
Suminda Sirinath Salpitikorala Dharmasena