Sebastian:
I think that Chris's assertion is justified by the growing importance
of arXiv, i.e., the resource behind http://www.arxiv.org/. More and
more, it is not just e-prints.
> except that I question what this is all for. we have (in my view), five
> things kicking around
. . .
> 4 (La)TeX the style design language
> 5 LaTeX the authoring language
>
> which is the important bit? which is the "unique public de facto
> archival and communication language", exactly?
It has not yet arrived. It needs to be and it can be one or perhaps a
collection of XML document types, and one can come very close to
making it (or them) appear like LaTeX for basic authoring.
-- Bill