Guidelines for externally-published versions of the DITA spec

[Kristen James Eberlein <kris@eberleinconsulting.com>]

Several TC members met with OASIS TC Admin, Chet Ensign, on Friday to clarify requirements for when people publish copies of the DITA specification in external applications.

Chet looked at the draft 1.3 spec, as published in SuiteHelp and Titania, and stated that the primary requirements are:

• That the OASIS copyright and notices be clearly rendered.
• (For drafts) That the cover page clearly indicate that the spec is a draft and indicate where the official source files are located.

Other points that we discussed include:

• The content of <shortdesc> must be rendered as the first paragraph of a topic.
• Applications should consider rendering short descriptions as link previews, but that this is not required.
• (For drafts) Applications should consider rendering draft comments, but that this is not required.
• Vendors publishing versions of the spec in their own application should consider providing information about their product and design choices.
  

I've edited the cover page topic pretty extensively, to remove sections that are only relevant when we are in the formal OASIS process, and to add the guidelines for folks who are publishing a copy of the draft spec.

I've also edited the root maps to include a 2nd set of notices. We'll exclude the new notices when we publish OASIS versions of the spec, but their presence will ensure that the notices are included when someone publishes the spec content. (The original notices had linking="none" toc="no, and so possibly would not be included when published by someone else.)

--
Best,
Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)