[Note from moderator: the poster is correct; this is off topic. Please send any reply to the poster. Replies to the list will not be posted. It should be noted that some guesses below about this history are not correct. A published version of the story is at: http://www.ams.org/notices/201301/rnoti-p97.pdf Best to all] Hi all, I have been reading some back issues of this list, and there are several cryptic comments about JPAA winding up after TAC started publishing. I vaguely recall that TAC was founded by editors and former editors of JPAA in order to give category theorists a journal that was not in the clutches of a commercial publisher. Could anyone enlighten me about what happened in the mid-90s leading to TAC being founded? (I am aware of the general situation wrt publishing, costs and corporate mergers.) Clearly the discussions were behind closed doors and all that came out at the time was the public announcement http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/catlist/1999/elec-journal I would be happy with private replies, as I suspect that the moderator may find discussion about this off-topic; if so, I beg his indulgence in allowing this posting through. Regards, David Roberts [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]