Paul Tchistopolskii writes:
 > 
 > It is available. It is not available in the form of 
 > 'evaluation version'. If you want to bye it - 
 > you can. Contact our sales and they'l start 
 > dancing around you.

I apologize. When I asked in the summer, someone (you?) said it was
not yet available. Since I had not seen any announcement, I checked
the Web site, and it did not give me any clue that fo2pdf was for
sale. I assumed it would quote price, platforms, availability,
requirements, specification etc etc.

 > There is one easy way to make it even open-source.

I was not actually asking for open source. Please don't get me wrong,
I am NOT criticizing RenderX for making a  commercial product.

 > If somebody will provide comparable functionality - 
working on it...

 > The content on RenderX website should be 
 > correct. If you can point me to the wrong information 
 > written anywhere there - I'l appreciate greatly. 

It is not wrong anywhere that I can see. just incomplete....
(ie I want to read about avialablility, pricing etc)

 > As to the wording - if you send me some particular  
 > comments  by e-mail, I'l forward your thoughts 
 > to marketing  and they may change the wording.
I was not being terribly serious

 > Maybe I was wrong when pointing somebody 
 > who has asked about FO's to our 
 > demonstration ?
not at all. most helpfil

 > Is there realy anything wrong on  www.renderx.com  
 > that is  worth  discussing it here, in a technical 
 > mailing-list ?
nope.

 > >  b) there remains much to do 
 > 
 > Yes. As usual and always. I think people who are writing 
 > HTML browsers *still* have *many*  things to do.  
 > Don't they?
um, whats the relevance of that?

 > What is the point here ?
correct me if I am wrong, but you don't seem to have tackled tables
yet. to me, thats so crucial I cannot regard a product without it as
seriously useful. 

 > 
 > Could you please provide the .fo stream to be considered 
 > "a really convincing example of table formatting"?  Just in case....
 > 
no, sorry, I don't have any good examples to hand. i am sure others
do. Norm Walsh's Docbook test documents have some reasonable things


 > > and when I can buy or otherwise acquire a copy of fo2pdf,
 > 
 > Maybe you can right now. Contact our sales. Unfortunately, 
 > it is not  available to students, for example.
er, why ever not??? why would you NOT sell to me on the basis of my
profession?? (not that I am a student)

 > "We are bulding a new Netscape, but not a new Mozaic if 
 > you know enough to understand the difference".  

you are building a new web browser? i would not have guessed it from
the web site. 

 > renderx  is mostly  typical 'commercial' website.
 > The level of bullshit there is not too high, 

true. not sure that two wrongs make a right, but i take the point.


 > > PS remember the old adage "if their web site is not valid HTML, don't buy
 > > from them"? Paul, you might want to pass by validator.w3.org :-}
 > 
 > Our .fo streams are  much more valid than it could be, 
i am talking about the HTML of your Web site itself, not your .fos,
which are of course excellent

 > Maybe I'm stupid.  
on the other hand, maybe I am.

Sebastian


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