Re: Abbreviation for markup?

[David Kastrup]

Thomas Morley <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi David,
>
> 2012/1/30 David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
> [...]
>> We have established that it does not make sense to divert work setting
>> up generic channels when there is, at the current point of time, a
>> single taker and not even enough to go around to support him.
>
> How to do it different? Should every person, interested in supporting
> you, contact you offlist and ask for your bank account?

Well yes, that would be the procedure for larger and/or regular
payments.  Smaller amounts can go through PayPal for now.

> [...]

Let me reinsert a relevant part of the [...] here for the sake of our
readers:

>>> But I'm disappointed about your statements about experienced users.
>>> You're right, I'm quite sure I could have solved Helge's problem.
>>> But I decided to answer to Brent because he was first. The rest of the
>>> day I visited a good friend being in her very last period of lifetime
>>> at the hospital.
>>>
>>> So - very british - I'm not amuzed.

>> And I don't think that any number of postings along the line "Dude, how
>> come you expect something from me?  I, as opposed to you freaks, have a
>> life." will really turn the balance to the better.

Wouldn't you say that this is what your passage boils down to?  Mind
you, there is nothing wrong with you having a life.  But there would be
nothing wrong with me having a life, either.  And eating, heating and
housing is useful for that.  And part of your life, apparently, is
filled with music.  And keeping LilyPond in good shape is useful for
that.

> In an other mail of this thread you wrote:
>
> "Knowledge organizes in pyramids.  And one can't build those without the
> intermediate layers."
>
> Will it turn the things better if you alienate all people not
> satisfying your expectations?

I am not enough of a diplomat to win a single person-to-person battle in
the fight to get people to put their money rather than their foot where
their mouth is.  And even if I were, I would not be getting the
equivalent of the time and stomach aches and sleepless nights I spend on
them.

I can be pretty sure that everyone I start arguing with is lost to my
cause.  But I learn to lose in more embarrassing ways.  I don't have the
resources to win a single battle in my fight for funding LilyPond
development.  But that is less important than winning the war, and that
is won in the hearts of the bystanders.  I need more of them than I can
address individually.  How many battles did Gandhi win?

I've been a gentleman about funding while being maintainer of AUCTeX
(and, at some time, its prime developer).  That did not even by far get
me back the travelling fees for conferences where I taught people how to
make use of the stuff I gave them.  You don't beat a sense of economic
decency into enough people by being discrete and humble.  There is
nothing new with that: I again refer to Wilde

<URL:http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/DevFri.shtml>

It is a bit of a painful spectacle for those that actually do the right
thing without prodding.  I wish they were not outnumbered as severely,
but then I have to work with what I got.

-- 
David Kastrup