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Subject: Re: [docbook] SGML support
On Tue, 2004-12-21 at 14:55, Frans Englich wrote: > On Monday 20 December 2004 21:58, Norman Walsh wrote: > > At the DocBook TC meeting this month, I took an action to point out > > that our current plans for DocBook V5.0 will probably have less > > support for SGML than the current DocBook V4.x line. > > > > Our plan of record is to work with a RELAX NG schema from which we > > will generate a W3C XML Schema and an XML DTD. The DTD is not likely > > to have much in the way of parameterization. It's going to be a > > "compiled" product much more than a "source" product. This is a > > consequence of the fact that we're taking advantage of some of the > > expressive power of RELAX NG. The DTD will be significantly "looser" > > than the schema. > > > > The current 4.X line only supports SGML in a few small ways: it > > supports some forms of tag minimization and a few inclusions and > > exclusions. It's not clear to me that there's value in trying to > > preserve this support in the V5.0 line. > > > > The TC would very much like the community's feedback on these plans. > > KDE, one of the desktop environments, uses Docbook heavily for all application > documentation(help browsers and so forth). The current system have been there > for long and leans towards SGML. > > While I don't speak for KDE, I personally see clear obstacles because of not > using XML, and there is a pressure towards XML. KDE is soon to start a new > major version(binary compatibility is broken and other large changes), and if > Docbook 5.0 arrived in a suitable timeframe, KDE would probably start the > major work of switching, I estimate. > > >From my perspective, I do not at all mind dropped SGML support, and welcome > the new Docbook version. Also, it wouldn't hurt if it didn't take too long to > arrive. Frans: I'm curious which SGML features KDE is using, and what processing tools you're using for your DocBook. We dropped SGML support in Gnome about a year ago, so this is potentially a serious interchange issue, especially if we ever standardize on a single help system. Norm: The officially supported version of DocBook for Gnome is still 4.1.2, although most 4.2 and 4.3 features will work. I'm trying to push our documents to a newer version, mostly because we want to use xrefstyle. Assuming 5.0 is similar to "DocBook NG", Gnome could probably support it within one release cycle after the 5.0 release. I strongly favor the RELAX NG approach, and I'll be pushing all of our documents towards this just as soon as there's an official release. I think I can speak for Gnome when I say, "Go Norm!" -- Shaun
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