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List:       lyx-users
Subject:    Re: Strategies for Writing Co-operation with Non-LyX Users?
From:       Piero Faustini <pierofaustini () hotmail ! com>
Date:       2009-02-08 11:39:58
Message-ID: loom.20090208T103541-129 () post ! gmane ! org
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Guenter Milde <milde@...> writes:

> Document format conversion is lossy "by a natural law".

...the Wise know this.

Anyway, @LyxLyght's "oppositors": I 

not-LyX-nor-even-LaTeX (i.e. Word) collaborators are of 3 kind:

A. Those who will never use anything different than Word (or OOo), say >50%
B. Those who may try something different, but only if really simple, say the 
greatest part of the remaining people
C. Those who may try LyX if worth trying, i.e. some lonely hero.

IMHO, each kind will need a different strategy. Let's start from the latter.

C. LyX, full stop (with improved project/bundle/version-control features). 
B. LyXLight, i.e. a non-scaring non-LaTeX very-friendly lightweight (non-
installing portable?) LyX pack.
A. Flexible, powerful converters, and maybe PDF-commenting compatibility.

these should be the 3 corps of our army: we should use all of them in the 
attack against M$ rule, but their use and cost is very different (please, have 
mercy of my war-metaphors!):

C. Behind our lines, let's just show our colleagues how powerful is to use a 
clean version-control system in clean documents etc. etc. Let's develop more 
advertising and info in different languages, fields and difficoulty levels 
("propaganda").

B. LyXlight is almost already done without doing anything. As David pointed 
out, A Lyx "Latexless" installation already works, it need only a restyle or 
simply a make-up, and, if possible, with a greater effort, also a "portable 
version" which don't require installation. This would be our best "propaganda" 
weapon. Ads too should therefore be basic-user-oriented, VERY friendly, and 
again, differentiated in languages, fields (maths, engineering, sciences, 
economics, law, humanities, textual-criticism-editions...) but a very basic 
level.

A. Conversion-software-trimming is a neverending task. I think it could be a 
very difficoult and annoying work, but we need it. Let's say converters "labs" 
should anyway take the 90% of the "war" costs. But we need them to "bomb" our 
collaborators with accettable rtf docs in order to invade our departments with 
our LyX papers. Needles to say, these could be a hard "dirty guerrilla war" 
since with LyX and LaTeX improvements, we will need better and better 
converters to handle growing features, and there will be always some problems 
in the conversions.

With this strategy in mind, LyX and Lyx users could advance a lot.

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