Re: Join Foundation to Support ConTeXt for the next 50 Years

[Henri Menke <henri@henrimenke.de>]

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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If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://context.aanhet.net
archive  : https://bitbucket.org/phg/context-mirror/commits/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
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