<lurker mode=off>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christoph Wagner [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 3:08 PM
> To: 'Post all your questions about iText here'
> Subject: Re: [iText-questions] v2.x continuity
>
> > And for what... the price for a license of iText? What corporation
> > would
> > balance the potential for multi-hundreds of thousands of dollar lawsuit
> > against $2000 or whatever it might be. It will cost the company more
> > than $2000 in legal fees to review the LGPL and its use in iText.
>
> The problem here is that iText is much more expensive if someone want to
> ship it with a native client application installed on several thousand
> computers where the PDF printing is just a little feature of thousands of
> others. It would be no problem to pay 2000$ for a general license but the
> current license scheme is ridiculous because it would force license buyers
> to report number of client installations back to you which are then used
> to
> come up with the amount of money to pay.
> That's simply not acceptable for such a small library. For example the
> xPDF
> library which renders PDF on any imaginable platform (and contains much
> more
> complicated code than iText)
[Erik Pfingsten] Have you actually looked at the source code for both projects.
They both looked pretty complicated to me. Your statement that xPDF "contains
much more complicated code than iText" is spurious at best. Not to mention,
xPDF is (gross over-generalization) for viewing PDF's, iText is for creating
PDF's. Not saying one is simpler than the other, but it's like comparing LCD
Screens and Digital Camera's (I would have said apples and oranges, but that
seems soooo 20th century :-)
> is a one-pay 1500$ lib with no further
> restrictions (OEM). If the same would apply for iText I would be happy to
> pay but with the current licensing scheme: no thanks...
[Erik Pfingsten] Looking at xPDF's "purchase" page
(http://www.glyphandcog.com/buy.html), you need developer licenses AND Run-Time
licenses. Your "native client application installed on several thousand
computers"...let's just say 5000 computers as a nice round number...would cost
$50,000 ($1,000 per 100 run-time licenses), and in a way, you would essentially
be reporting how many apps you sold every time you bought a new 100 pack of
licenses. Oh, and that appears to be PER component (want to print those pdf's
you can view? it looks to me like another set of licenses, although maybe I'm
wrong on that)
[Erik Pfingsten] You say xPDF has $1500 license for OEM's? Have you actually
contacted iText Commercial to see what they would charge? Maybe they have a
large volume OEM type license available too (oh wait...what's this?
http://itextpdf.com/terms-of-use/index.php). Or maybe they are willing to work
with you to come to a reasonable amount...
> Another thing to keep in mind: the responses on this list on bug reports
> or
> questions are usually one of these:
>
> 1. Buy the book without any further explanation or just a short hint where to
> find something
[Erik Pfingsten] or a pointer to the source code examples on the website that
you can look at, not to mention the api documentation, sample chapters. Oh, and
more often than not, an actual solution in the email response
> 2. You are using the old version, we won't help you because of that
[Erik Pfingsten] Last time I checked, Microsoft doesn't offer support for
Windows 3.1 either
> 3. Sometimes no response at all
[Erik Pfingsten] really, I've never seen a question that wasn't answered at
some point
>
> This behavior does not match the price point of your lib and really does not
> encourages one to buy.
[Erik Pfingsten] My understanding has always been that this list is for support
of the "free" iText (for lack of a better way to put it). I believe that
Commercial users (companies that buy licenses) get priority support through a
support contact.
But to put it bluntly...to say that the responders on this list are not helpful
(which is the essence of your argument), is a load of crap
That's just my 2c.
Erik
<lurker mode=on>
This message, including any attachments, may contain information
which is confidential and privileged. Unless you are the addressee (or
authorized to receive for the addressee), you may not read, use, copy
or disclose to anyone the message, its attachments, or any information
contained therein. If you have received the message in error, please
advise the sender by reply e-mail and delete the message and any
attachments.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nokia and AT&T present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest
Create new apps & games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada
$10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing
Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store
http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev
_______________________________________________
iText-questions mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions
Buy the iText book: http://www.itextpdf.com/book/
Check the site with examples before you ask questions:
http://www.1t3xt.info/examples/
You can also search the keywords list: http://1t3xt.info/tutorials/keywords/
