Re: [dita] DITA goes Nuclear?

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>]

On 11/4/08 5:01 PM, "Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@reallysi.com> wrote:

> On 11/4/08 3:10 PM, "Robert D Anderson" <robander@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
>> So - is there anybody on the TC interested in working on a specialization
>> for the nuclear industry? If so, we can set up a subcommittee to start work
>> based on what has already been done. If so, please send a note briefly
>> describing your interest level (observer vs active participant). If you'd
>> rather not send directly to the list at this point, you can send to me and
>> I'll collect responses; if you do that, please also copy Don Day, as I'll
>> be offline some of the next week and want to be sure I don't miss any
>> notes.
> 
> While I'm sure such a specialization is quite valuable and it's exciting to
> see this type of activity happening, I worry that we are starting to set a
> precedent by which every community of interest that might find DITA useful
> wants to be a subcommittee.
> 
> I don't think that's either necessary or productive in the long run. DITA is
> expressly designed to enable unilateral extension that does not need to be
> coordinated with the base standard in order to be both reliably
> interchangeable and potentially useful as a standard in its own right.
> 
> There's absolutely no reason that something like a nuclear industry
> specialization couldn't be developed as a completely separate effort within
> whatever standards community serves the nuclear power industry.

Michael Priestly pointed out privately that there might be communities of
interest that do not have an existing standards-making body that could host
a DITA specialization standard, in which case the DITA TC would be a natural
home.  I agree completely.

My main intent is that it's clear to the DITA community at large that
standardization within the DITA TC is not a *requirement* for standardized
DITA specialization, nor is standardization within OASIS a requirement.

For example, if the Air Transport Association wanted to define an
aircraft-industry-specific set of specializations, it would make sense for
the ATA to host that activity--no need for it to be done under the TC just
because it happens to be a DITA-based XML application.

Cheers,

Eliot 

----
Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.
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