From the President - TUG 2004 preprints

Although this special communication from TUG is formatted in the usual TUGboat proceedings style, it is not officially a TUGboat issue, there is no volume or issue number, and it was produced before the meeting. Why? These editorial notes (try to) explain the situation.

The 2004 TUG Annual Meeting is organized by Apostolos Syropoulos and others, associated with the Greek TeX Friends user group, in collaboration with the Democritus University of Thrace in Xanthi, Greece. The organizers were able to negotiate with Springer-Verlag for the proceedings of the meeting to be published in Springer's prestigious series Lecture Notes in Computer Science. (It is now available through Springer.)

As TUG president, I felt such a publication was in the best interests of TeX and TUG, as it would expose our system to a wide new audience. On the other hand, of course it was absolutely necessary for every current TUG member to receive the proceedings, as that is a benefit promised upon joining.

Unfortunately, it is not financially possible for TUG to purchase the Springer volume for every member. Therefore, with the consent of the TUG board, we worked out this compromise. The principal points of the agreement are these:

• The present volume of "preprints" is fully edited and prepared to usual TUGboat publication standards.
• The present volume will be one of the usual three TUG publications sent to members for 2004. The other two will be regular TUGboat issues.
• Springer's volume will be the publication of record for the 2004 meeting; this is why the present volume is not an official TUGboat issue.
• We also are not sending the present volume of preprints to libraries which are TUG members or subscribers, as it cannot easily be cataloged. Thus, it would only cause trouble for the librarians. Libraries (that are members in 2004) will receive the Springer volume.
• TUG will not sell the present volume through our online store; it will be sent only to those who join TUG for the 2004 membership year.
• Springer or the authors may make the papers available online.

I sincerely hope this one-time special arrangement will meet with everyone's understanding. It was a difficult compromise on everyone's parts. We expect future proceedings of TUG annual meetings to be published as normal TUGboat issues.

Production of the three issues of TUGboat for the 2003 membership year is continuing. The proceedings of the TUG 2003 conference will probably be the first to be completed.

As always, feel free to email the TUG board or the TUGboat editorial staff with any questions, concerns, or (most important of all!) suggestions and submissions for future articles.