Re: [dita] clarifying the href attribute in the language reference

[Don Day <dond@us.ibm.com>]

"Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com> wrote on 05/17/2007 07:24:26
PM:

> Grosso, Paul wrote:
>
> > Fine, that's saying something.  That's all I'm asking.
> > (We don't have a global statement in DITA analogous to
> > XML's not well-formed statement, so it's not clear in
> > general what should happen when a DITA document doesn't
> > conform to the constraints in the DITA standard.)
>
> I think I understand what Paul is getting at and I agree with all his
> suggestions. I also take his point that people will blame the tool that
> correctly fails where others don't if the spec is not clear.
>
> That's also interesting about the MIME type--and I agree we should let
> that sleeping dog snore until we can do the right thing, which will be
> 2.0 at the earliest.

To enable us to bring this discussion to a proposal, then, I just want to
point out that Mary McRae is about to launch the ballot for formal TC
approval of the 1.1 Committee Specification
(http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php#3.3), which we don't want
to put at risk. The process at this point is under the following procedural
contraints:

The TC that originated the specification may resolve by Special Majority
Vote to withdraw the proposed specification at any point after it is
submitted to the TC Administrator for administrative processing and before
the start of the voting period. No part of the submission may be changed or
altered in any way after being submitted to the TC Administrator, including
by Errata or corrigenda. Errata, corrigenda or other changes to a Committee
Specification are not permitted after its submission for OASIS Standard
approval; if changes are required the Committee Specification must be
withdrawn by the TC, edited, re-approved as a Committee Specification, and
then may be resubmitted as a proposed OASIS Standard. Proposed changes of
any kind to a Committee Draft or Committee Specification may be maintained
by a Technical Committee, but do not have any approval status until
incorporated into a revised Committee Draft or Committee Specification.

So I think this discussion falls into "proposed changes" considerations for
1.2, but at least we can document them early in the process as a separate
Committee Draft that we can associate on the TC's home page.  Paul, would
you or Eliot care to take a stab at a draft for the TC? I don't think there
is an urgent schedule requirement if the work scope is small enough to make
this a "simple" inclusion for the 1.2 list of work.

Regards,
--
Don Day
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
IBM Lead DITA Architect
Email: dond@us.ibm.com
11501 Burnet Rd. MS9033E015, Austin TX 78758
Phone: +1 512-838-8550
T/L: 678-8550

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
 Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
   --T.S. Eliot