Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: XEP for $80

[Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu> writes:

> At 2:13 PM -0700 10/15/02, Bob Stayton wrote:
> >For those of you who would like a better XSL-FO
> >processor and can afford to go beyond the free
> >FOP and PassiveTeX, I just learned that RenderX XEP
> >is available for $80 in the version that stamps
> >each page with their company name.  This is not the free demo
> >version that blanks even-numbered pages after the
> >10th page.  It is a single client license of XEP version 3.02,
> >PDF backend only.  It's available from:
> 
> If it's stamping every page, it's still a demo, and I can't see 
> paying $0.80 for a demo, much less $80.00.
> 
> >They also have a $300 license that doesn't
> >stamp your pages.  These prices are much lower than
> >they used to be.
> 
> Yes, but this version still doesn't come with documentation. If you 
> want documentation you need to pay $999.95.

It's basically a black box, so end users don't need extensive docs for
it. As David pointed out, the $1000 price tag seems to be for the
"developer" version, and the docs are API documentation for developers.

> This still costs more than FrameMaker/Quark/PageMaker for something
> that does a lot less.

Apples and oranges.

It's not that it does less, it's that it does something none of those is
capable of doing at all: automated generation of PDF/Postscript from
XSL-FO files.

  --Mike