Re: [docbook] Ruminations on the future of DocBook

[Katharina Udemadu <katharina.udemadu@web.de>]

Just to share my thoughts:

I've, in a way, carried around these ruminations in my mind for some 
days now. And I've finally come to the conclusion that it is propably 
the best thing, as Norm suggests, to declare the current version of 
DocBook finished and move on.

It took me some time to realise that, but I guess it was fairly obvious 
for some time now, that it wasn't really possible (or at least 
practical) to move on as DocBook has for some time: supporting SGML and 
XML, DTD and Schema, and different processing chains.

I am not so much sure where DocBook is moving, though. I'd agree with 
Norm's modern approach of using XML, Relax-NG, and putting it in a 
namespace. But what is DocBook really used for today? People author in 
DocBook, right. But what do they author?
The ongoing discussion about the complexity of DocBook and reducing the 
number of elements leaves me in doubt about what people use it for.

I've always had the impression that DocBook was very well equipped for 
structuring different types of technical documents.
It does not get more appropriate or easier to learn if the number of 
elements is reduced. On the other hand, it would only be time-consuming, 
if we would start to discuss in which modules a certain element should 
be included.
(Just for clarification: I agree with cleaning-up DocBook elements.)

Moving from today's valid DocBook to tomorrow's valid DocBook is maybe 
not the difficult part. I can imagine that it will be much harder for 
legacy systems to adapt their processing chains.

To sum up: I agree that rethinking DocBook is necessary, but I still do 
not have a very precise idea of where we are moving, and whether most 
users are ready to move at all.

Katharina