RE: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC Administration do to help?

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

One advantage of a final form layout document is that the ability to
cross-reference to pages, to cite pages and sections in defect reports,
errata, and other artifacts that need to lead to precise fragments of the
specification is important.  It also helps that printed-on-paper (or even
printed-on-PDF) has some clear correlation to what the authoritative digital
form is.

Also, I would not want to have to depend on on-line access to a
specification and it should work at least as well on my laptop as on paper.

I am not disagreeing on a required output format delivered to the OASIS
"publisher."  I am concerned that we have clear identification and
requirements on the use cases that must be satisfied and the variant forms
that must be derivable from it.


  - Dennis
  - - - - - - - - - - - - -
   Standards are arbitrary solutions to recurring problems (R. W. Bemer)
   Although not by becoming the recurring problem (orcmid).
  When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.



-----Original Message-----
From: Frederick.Hirsch@nokia.com [mailto:Frederick.Hirsch@nokia.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 11:07
To: ndw@nwalsh.com
Cc: Frederick.Hirsch@nokia.com; chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC Administration do
to help?

Hi Norm

I think all agree that an automated "pubrules" tool would be very helpful,
and your point about a output format is well taken. 

Given the variety of devices there is much value in a format that "re-flows"
(to use e-book terminology) like HTML, as opposed to other formats the
presume a certain size display.

regards, Frederick

Frederick Hirsch, Nokia



On May 18, 2010, at 2:01 PM, ext Norman Walsh wrote:

> [Sorry to be coming late to the party, been a busy few weeks. ]
> 
> Mary McRae <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org> writes:
>> Agreed. How would the chairs feel about mandating all specs be
>> created in an OASIS XML format?
> 
> That seems to make life more difficult for (some) editors and not much
> different for most readers. I think we'd be more likely to see
> usability gains if we mandated a single, normative output format.
> Specifically, I'd like to see XHTML with mechanically enforcable and
> enforced conventions. A RELAX NG grammar could check some conventions,
> Schematron rules others. At the end of the day, a "publication rules"
> checker might do some ad hoc analysis as well.
> 
> This would make the published specifications uniform and accessible
> which seems like a better win for our readers than a selection of
> formats derived from a smaller set of input sources.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't dream of editing a spec in anything
> *other* than (a particular) OASIS XML format, but that's not going to
> be news to anyone :-)
> 
>                                        Be seeing you,
>                                          norm
> 
> -- 
> Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | Throughout history the world has been
> http://nwalsh.com/            | laid waste to ensure the triumph of
>                              | conceptions that are now as dead as the
>                              | men that died for them.--Henry De
>                              | Montherlant