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