🚀 go-pugleaf

      Interleaf did not fade away recently, but it's only now that companies
      are lookiing for a process/tool to replace it.




I helped move my current employer from Interleaf to Frame. Though there are only 5 of us in the technical writing dept. and it had been about 6 years since the last Interleaf upgrade, conversion is still a huge process - and, really, the Interleaf workflow was not all that bad. The lack of support and upgrades, though, was getting to be too much, so people were happy to switch. But yes, it does take considerable time for a dead product to truly end its career.

      How can we plan unless they tell us their intentions.




Having lived through 5 years at a software company always eager to broadcast its intentions well in advance of release, it's clear to me why they don't tell us their intentions. Once you tell people what to expect from your software development process - something that's almost impossible to predict accurately - you'll be spending all your time explaining why you're not meeting expectations. We know that they've moved development of FrameMaker to India, right? This means they're still developing FrameMaker, and are therefore planning a new release of some kind.

If they say they're working on an OSX version, this would potentially convince people to migrate to OSX; but it wouldn't be taking into account the many issues that might arise between now and an eventual release of the product. As Lee Richardson said above, problems could arise during development which would cause them to scrap the whole project. It's bad business to tell the future until you are certain of what's to come.