Subject: MusixTeX-Versions Taupin/Egler
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Here is D. Taupin's tentatively objective answer to questions commonly posed
about the existence of two versions of MusiXTeX

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>1) Why are there two branches of MusixTeX (Andreas Eglers and Daniel
>   Taupin)? Don't the authors want to talk to each other anymore? Do
>   they have different opinions about how to proceed with the project?

  D. Taupin and A. Egler definitely have different opinions about the
development of musixtex. A. Egler emphasizes about:
    - compiling speed,
    - minimizing TeX memory requirements,
    - beauty of the output score.
  D. Taupin preferred to emphasize about:
    - immediate re-use of scores coded for MusiCTeX; this implies that
      MusiXTeX be able to compile "ancient" MusiCTeX scores, yielding
      more beautiful outputs,
    - compatibility between MusiXTeX new features and coding with the
      MusiCTeX commands.

>2) What are the main differences between Daniels and Andreas'
>   distributions?

    - if you use Egler's version, you shall have, either to correct each TeX
      line to change ancient MusiCTeX scores to new MusiXTeX commands, or you
      throw them away to the waste. This is of course harmless if you start
      with MusiXTEX and you have no habits about MusiCTeX coding; besides,
      all command names are English looking, rather than French or Italian...
    - if you use Taupin's version, you can use both the new commands invented
      by Egler and ALL the ancient ones. But the drawback is that some internal
      commands are not protected by an "@" in their name, so that you might
      unfortunately redefine them (unlikely, but who knows?). Another drawback
      is that Taupin's version might be slower and more memory consuming, a
      serious problem if you only have a small TeX of 64k memory items.
>
>3) The branches seem to start getting incompatible. So one has to
>   decide to either
>   a) have appropriate tools to translate Egler <--> Taupin
>     or to
>   b) decide for one of the two branches.

  Do that, and convert your scores only once, manually.
    
>   If one does the latter, one tends to like to know if the authors can
>   estimate how long they will be able to support their packages (nobody
>   wants to invest into a cul-de-sac).

  D. Taupin will maintain his version of MusiXTeX, as well as MusiCTeX for
years, as long as... inch' Allah. His E-mail is "taupin@lps.u-psud.fr".