maxwel

Personally, I don't think your numbers argument is very persuasive. I am familiar with LaTeX, and some of my colleagues at university use it, but I think it is restricted almost entirely to the sciences, and even there, only a small subset of students/researchers/faculty use it. I have never encountered anyone in K-12 using it, but I wouldn't be surprised to find pockets of enthusiasts here and there.

If you accept that we are mainly talking about university students, then the percentage of the US population (last I checked) was under 6%. That is less than 15 million students.

If you accept that LaTeX is restricted primarily to the hard sciences, I think we are talking about less than 200,000 students (last I checked) graduating with BAs each year. And, less than 10,000 with PhDs.

The USA might be the centre of the world (it depends how you draw your maps) but it is not the only country in the world. There are millions of students, mathematicians, statisticians, scientists, engineers and computer scientists around the world who use mathematical equations. Mathematics is *the* universal language and needs to be supported. Its not about latex - latex just happens to be one of the most popular ways to write maths equations.

+1

The important thing to consider is not just the number of people who need it, but also the seriousness of the need for the people who do need it. Currently there is no way to make notes including mathematical equations. It is not just that people want "latex" support - they *need* math support, and latex support is just one of the most popular markups for mathematical equations.