Although our customers have not asked for the work that we do for them to be authored in a DITA environment, we want to adopt DITA internally to improve our delivery process. The tools that are commercially available are quite expensive and unless my customer sponsors buying of these tools we may not be able to afford the same.
So my question to the community is this: Can DITA authoring and publishing be done using open source (free or less expensive) tools?
Has anyone tried the same? What are your experiences?
Comments
- what are your business requirements?
- what are your goals (what will make adoption a success for YOU)?
- where do you expect to get your ROI (even if it's just effort to customize solutions)
- what is your desired end user experience
- how do authors and reviewers need to work
- and a lot more
Then determine if the tools at the lower end of the spectrum (free, open source, or budget-conscious) can meet your requirements.