Chris Rowley writes:
 > There has always (I suspect) been, and continues to be, a very close
 > relationship between the producers of complex mathematical
 > manu/compuscripts and the providers of the technology to make it
 > easily available to others.
in maths, sure, i accept this. but not in many other fields

 > The recent large amount of activity in the math fonts area has also been
 > driven largely by concerned mathematicians, either directly or via
 > learned societies such as the AMS.
i bet they wished they did not have to work on it!

 > This is not quite on the level of typesetting technology but the
 > principle is the same: the tradition of knowing what is needed resides
 > almost entirely within the mathematical community, so we must be involved
 > whatever the tax-payers think.
hmm. why do mathematicians always present themselves as a special
case?

 > PS: And I shall arrange a small personal refund to Sebastian to cover
 > the minute proportion of my time that I spend on this kind of

you choose to make typesetting your research area, so you are covered :-}

anyway, you are (and you know it!) deliberately misrepresenting my
basic view point....

sebastian