TCS 4 as DITA out-of-the-box solution

[Combs, Richard]

Syed Zaeem Hosain wrote: 
 
> I like the Scriptorium _Unstructured_ FrameMaker book a lot (currently
> for version 8), and am looking forward to their Version 11 (as
> mentioned in the link you provided).
> 
> They had also announced, some years ago, a _Structured_ FrameMaker
> Version 8 book, which they decided not to release ... due to a belief
> that sales would not justify the work.
> 
> So, that was my reason for piling on to your comment, i.e. my
> plug/hint/prod to release the old book - perhaps in a PDF-only version?
> - particularly if there is no version 11 planned.

If as you suggest, the FM 8 version was finished or nearly so, releasing it makes lots of sense and failing to makes none. The time, effort, and money invested in the book are what economists call "sunk costs" (analogous to the layperson's concept of "spilt milk"). That's in the past and can't be undone. 

Any sales whatsoever, no matter how few, would be better than none because they'd at least recover some of the sunk costs. PDF or EPUB make a lot of sense because they don't require any significant additional investment, like printing and binding would. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
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