I now have updated the xor module far enough to make xo-pfloat compile again
with reasonable output; due to some kernel updates a bunch of routines got
broken (and the balancing interface is still in a state of flux (though not
needed here so that is ok). 

What doesn't work properly is the final page-layout as far as running
headers/footers and placement of the text area is concerned---for the moment I
"fixed" that by simply moving everything far enough to the left so that it
stays within a normal page.

so next things to tackle are

 - revisiting the pagelayout interface 

 - finishing implementing balancing (it works in cases without floats but
   rather badly handles the situation when floats are present)

frank