Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: First Open Source Documentation Summit at the O'ReillyOpen Source Convention]]

[Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian.rahtz@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>]

> While reading the article at the end of that message, I wish I had been
> there.
i wish i had been there too, sinc i happened to be at the same conference
:-}

> Everyone seems to agree to use DocBook, very well. However, in the
> opinion of the author himself, the jadetex processing tool is not suited
> for professional books.
no, its not. for two reasons
 - (open)jade does not implement all of the things in DSSSL you would need
 - jadetex does not implement all of what openjade produces

in some ways the first is more important than the second

> Do the other people here use it?
> Are you happy with it?
> Do you use something else?
> Did you think in developing something else?

i really cannot see why you want to stick with SGML and DSSSL. why not put
the effort into XSL FO?

> I have unhopeful not the sufficient skills in TeX to initiate it myself,
> but we, at MandrakeSoft, are interested in participating in the project
> of developing a new solution. A completely rewritten "print" stylesheet,
> generating true LaTeX seems to be the solution.

i dont agree at all

 a) it perpetuates the writing of "style" in LaTeX
 b) you lose the chance of other backends using the same style code
 c) it makes the whole DSSSL stage fairly redundant

i could go on in the same vein for a while if anyone is interested...

sebastian