Hi, Pete I think that it would be most accurate to say that there is a relatively stable core of features - the feedback on this list has been that people do indeed use FOP, and reliably so, in production. But there are definitely limitations - both lack of some XSL-FO features and also issues related to memory.
We are not where we would like to be, despite some significant personal efforts. I don't count myself in that latter group, not for the past half year certainly, as I have been sidelined by real work. I think Keiron Liddle or Karen Lease would be best able to comment on where we FOP is headed. I think, based on your problem description, that you may very well find that FOP suits your needs even in its current state. For a certain set of problems I would not necessarily describe FOP as being "beta" at all. Others will likely comment. I might add that because of the Apache license your development teams would be able to freely modify and improve the source. For x.yy.z, x == 0 just means FOP hasn't achieved our first major target: full feature support at nearly Extemded Conformance, with performance enhancements. With that in mind, we advance yy every few months as relatively significant new features are introduced. 'z' represents sets of bug-fixes and minor enhancements. We are currently at 0.20.3rc, and should upgrade to 0.20.3 in less than a week. Bertrand Delacretaz is working on JFOR integration - I am sure he will have more to say. If extensive feature support (XSL-FO compliance) is the _primary_ concern, I think you'd not go wrong in looking at either RenderX XEP or Antenna House XSL Formatter. I can't comment on the price. Expect other comments. :-) Regards, Arved Sandstrom -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: January 24, 2002 7:13 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Seeking Comments on Status of Project First off, thank you for what looks like a fantastic effort. I admire (and am envious of) each of you who have found the time to contribute to such a valuable project. I am involved with the approval process for bringing new technology into our company. We have several development groups who have seen the FOP engine and would like to include it their applications. The requirements are pretty much the same across applications. They need to generate lots of short dynamic documents in PDF (lots=500-1000 per day, short=1-20 pages, mostly text, some tables). Some of the applications need to support unicode or double-byte languages. On the surface, I agree that FOP looks like the right answer for what they need. However, I also need to ensure that we follow our guidelines for technology acquisition. One of our primary tenets is "no beta software should be included in production applications". I have read through many posts in the mail list and appreciate the honesty and clarity about the current status. Back in January of 2001 and again in July 2001, Arved Sandstrom pointed out that FOP is still a development effort. With this message, I am hoping I can persuade one of the committers to provide a "January 2002" update on the status. I have found the occasional status messages very useful, hopefully any response to this message on the archive will help others in the future. Here is a snippet from the July 2001 post by Arved: >> FOP developers and committers have never suggested that the processor is >> anything other than a work in progress. My best guess is that if we have a >> production release by the end of the year then we'll be doing well. Alpha is >> a long ways away. Is this still the case? I am making an assumption that the version number speaks to the status (v0.x is "pre-release"). Is the version numbering a reflection of: A. Still early in development B. Indication of how completely the XSL:FO spec is implemented C. A combination of both I also in various places reference to RC (Release Candidate) versions. It seems that currently v0.20.1 is the latest "stable" release (no implication intended by "stable" - I just think I saw that phrasing somewhere associated with v0.20.1). If possible, could someone clarify the intention/meaning of the x.yy.zz version scheme. (I am guessing that x is major production release, yy is a change to what is supported, and zz is for minor changes / patches.) I see some notes about the inclusion of jfor (RTF output) into the FOP project. I think that would be really cool, and speaks very well of the effort put in thus far. Anyone care to comment on when that may make it into a release? On a somewhat related note, any updated comments on the following would be appreciated. I have seen several posts that recommend Renderx XEP if you "need production level code". Is that still the case? Sometime ago, Renderx apparently put a feature comparison up on their site, but since removed it (concerns of bias, etc). I have seen references to things like "look for independent comparisons". Has anyone seen a recent comparison? I can not find one (though I understand time is better spent refining the code than dedicating resources to run comparisons). Thanks in advance for any responses, Pete Tribulski --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
