Michael,
It occurred to me this morning that it may be the packaging aspect of
ODF that gives the impression that it is fundamentally different from
DocBook or DITA.
That is to say that in order to have a published output of either
DocBook or DITA, one uses stylesheets. Yes?
Well, the same is true for ODF except that ODF has the stylesheets
packaged up with the markup file.
As I said, I haven't compared the content models, that is the
content.xml part of ODF with DITA or DocBook but I would be very
surprised if they are completely different. There are only so many ways
to talk about document structures (at least in the Western tradition)
and I suspect there is more commonality than difference.
There are differences and at the level of abstraction that I usually
work at (when not editing ODF), they are all models. Pick whichever one
suits your purpose. What other criteria would there be? (I confess to
getting annoyed when ODF is portrayed as difficult or hard when only
seen through a user interface.)
Hope you are looking forward to a great weekend!
Patrick
On 4/22/2010 6:26 PM, Michael Priestley wrote:
OF68DF201F.C73D6335-ON8525770D.007A1959-8525770D.007B41F4@ca.ibm.com"
type="cite">
Hi Patrick,
You wrote:
>True, you can't edit it in OpenOffice but I am not
sure what that proves? Perhaps I am missing your point?
You can distinguish the source
format
from the other formats by the ability to edit it :-) (And also, the
ability
to generate the others from it)
>That is a common assumption, that "underlying
capabilities and structures are not reliably round-trippable" but
other than seeing it said, I haven't ever seen an example of it.
I've seen a thousand examples. DITA
and everything else :-) As a very simple example, <title> is
required in DITA, and font information is excluded. So if I move a DITA
topic into OpenOffice, delete the title and add fonts, I cannot get
back.
Then there's the reuse relationship - I don't know whether ODF has a
standardized
equivalent of the DITA conref attribute.
>Actually ODF does preserve the separation of
content
from style as the content is held in a separate file (within a package)
to which styles are applied
There is clearly a continuum. DITA
pushes
a lot more font stuff out of the document, and imposes a lot more
structure
and semantics in the element and attribute choices. HTML is probably
somewhere
in the middle. But I hope you're not going to say that ODF is as
presentation-free as DITA or DocBook.
>>>Second, with no model under discussion, it
is your assumption that the semantic and structural requirements of
DITA
and
>DocBook would even be relevant to the *unknown* model for OASIS
standards.
>Since both are already being used to develop and publish OASIS
standards,
I think their relevancy is established fact, not an assumption. The
work
of mapping DocBook and DITA >models to OASIS document outputs (using
stylesheets) has already been accomplished (or, in the case of DITA, is
at least nearly so).
>Err, the question wasn't the relevance of either
DITA
or DocBook
You asserted that the semantic and structural
requirements
of DITA and DocBook could not be known to be relevant to the OASIS
model,
because the OASIS model is unknown. I pointed out that since both DITA
and DocBook are already producing specifications that conform to the
OASIS
model, their requirements can be known to be relevant.
>You said that there were semantic and structural requirements of
both
that would be necessary for editing an OASIS standard.
No, I said they have semantic and structural
requirements
that are necessary in order to produce valid DITA or DocBook. And you
need
valid DITA or DocBook to run the transforms that produce valid OASIS
specifications.
>I pointed out in the absence of a *common model* for OASIS
standards,
it isn't possible to evaluate your statement.
There is a common output model. In the absence of a
common
source model, both DITA and DocBook are clearly already enabled and
doing
the job.
>Yes, both DocBook and DITA are being used to produce work products
of some TCs. The question is whether all TCs are producing a *uniform*
product?
As indicated in another thread,
output
from DocBook has already been established to be considerably more
conforming
than content created using Word templates. I certainly expect that the
DITA package will be similarly reliable.
>My point was that we lack the specific for "any
OASIS-specific structural requirements." If we had those, then we
could talk about how to meet them.
I can agree on this. Hopefully, in the meantime, I've
clarified why I do not think of DITA and DocBook as output formats, and
why I do not think of them as reliably roundtrippable with ODF (or even
each other, for that matter).
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical
Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
Michael,
On 4/22/2010 5:26 PM, Michael Priestley wrote:
Hi Patrick,
In the case of DITA and DocBook, "common look and feel" are primarily
a matter of the right stylesheets to produce PDF and HTML, combined
with
some authoring templates and guidelines. But the authoring templates
and
guidelines would be specific to the underlying standard, and the
content
being created will have different structural rules and capabilities
depending
on the standard chosen.
For example, a DITA topic with a reused common paragraph:
<topic id="abc">
<title>ABC section of spec</title>
<shortdesc>The ABC function is for blah
blah</shortdesc>
<body>
<p>This is
something unique to ABC</p>
<p
conref="ABCrelated.dita#anothertopic/xyz"><!--this
is a reused paragraph coming from somewhere else--></p>
<p>etc.</p>
</body>
</topic>
This topic obeys the DTD or XSD rules for a DITA topic. It uses DITA
capabilities
for reuse, and DITA structures for title, short description, and
content.
I cannot edit it with OpenOffice. I need to edit it with an XML editor
that enforces these rules and enables these capabilities: whether it's
a native XML editor like XMetal, Arbortext, Oxygen, etc. or a
plugin-enabled
Word, like Quark XML Author.
True, you can't edit it in OpenOffice but I am not
sure
what that proves? Perhaps I am missing your point?
>As long as
you
can output to a common model in any of those formats, how would you
distinguish
your "source format?"
I don't know what this means. The "source format" is the one
you edit, and whose rules the editor enforces. I added the example
above
to make this more concrete. I think ODF and other wordprocesser-centric
XML models are very different from the old-school "separate content
from presentation" formats like DITA and DocBook, and I want to avoid
confusion. The underlying capabilities and structures are not reliably
round-trippable.
That is a common assumption, that "underlying
capabilities
and structures are not reliably round-trippable" but other than seeing
it said, I haven't ever seen an example of it.
Actually ODF does preserve the separation of content from style as the
content is held in a separate file (within a package) to which styles
are
applied. Granting that some of the elements can be said to have
"presentational"
semantics but the separation of from structure has never been 100% in
any
system. Why do you think we all have a <p> element of some
variety?
You can say it is purely structure but I think we both know it has
implied
semantics.
>Second, with no model under discussion, it is your
assumption that the semantic and structural requirements of DITA and
>DocBook would even be relevant to the *unknown* model for OASIS
standards.
Since both are already being used to develop and publish OASIS
standards,
I think their relevancy is established fact, not an assumption. The
work
of mapping DocBook and DITA models to OASIS document outputs (using
stylesheets)
has already been accomplished (or, in the case of DITA, is at least
nearly
so).
Err, the question wasn't the relevance of either DITA
or DocBook
You said that there were semantic and structural requirements of both
that
would be necessary for editing an OASIS standard.
I pointed out in the absence of a *common model* for OASIS standards,
it
isn't possible to evaluate your statement.
Yes, both DocBook and DITA are being used to produce work products of
some
TCs. The question is whether all TCs are producing a *uniform* product?
Yes?
We could also go the route of creating a valid DITA
specialization
to model more closely any OASIS-specific structural requirements. DITA
specializations remain valid DITA, even when the tags have been heavily
customized for a particular use.
My point was that we lack the specific for "any
OASIS-specific
structural requirements." If we had those, then we could talk about
how to meet them.
But, I think we will need to develop those first.
Yes?
Hope you are having a great day!
Patrick
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical
Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
Michael,
On 4/22/2010 3:44 PM, Michael Priestley wrote:
Patrick wrote:
>Those are output formats. Why would we limit users to just one?
None of those are output formats. And authoring in any one of them is
mutually
exclusive with the others. You can only have one source format.
As long as you can output to a common model in any of those formats,
how
would you distinguish your "source format?"
OpenOffice editors may be capable of reading ODF into memory, and then
outputting to other models - but that is not the same as authoring in
that
model. For example ODF allows formatting instructions in source that
deliberately
have no equivalent in DocBook or DITA. And both DITA and DocBook have
semantic
and structural requirements that cannot be enforced in a
general-purpose
word processor.
First, I am assuming there would be a common set of features, like part
2 of the ISO guide to authoring standards, which would control what
structure
can appear in an OASIS standard.
Second, with no model under discussion, it is your assumption that the
semantic and structural requirements of DITA and DocBook would even be
relevant to the *unknown* model for OASIS standards.
If we created equivalent stylesheets for DocBook and DITA, we should be
able to get a common look and feel from those two different source
formats.
To accomplish the same end in ODF would require a different approach, I
believe, using authoring templates and guidelines rather than schema
rules
and stylesheets.
Not having a known model to go by, I would speculate that authoring
templates
and stylesheets (which limit the users options) would be sufficient.
I think it would be wonderful if OASIS allowed authoring of its
specifications
in any of its standardized document formats. Then TCs can make their
own
choice of source format based on the capabilities they require, and
produce
a common look and feel that still supports the needs of the OASIS brand.
So long as it results in a common output, I can't argue with how a TC
gets
there.
But I do think that requires agreement on what that "common look and
feel" as you put it will be.
Hope you are having a great day!
Patrick
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
Bryan,
On 4/22/2010 1:17 PM, bryan.s.schnabel@tektronix.com
wrote:
Yes! I'd love it. But I can already begin to see the battle lines being
drawn, i.e., which one (DITA, Docbook, OpenDocument, . . .)?
Those are output formats. Why would we limit users
to just
one?
Even though as the ODF editor I would prefer that everyone output to
ODF,
I can understand why others feel equally strongly for their output
formats.
The real fight would be over a uniform format. The underlying
representation
that is output is a detail. An important one but still just a detail.
Personally I would welcome an activity to declare meaningful rules for
formatting OASIS standards, provided those rules were enforced.
If nothing else, it would make the main work product of our committees
have some appearance of issuing from the same organization (other than
the cover pages).
Hope you are having a great day!
Patrick
From: Mary McRae [mailto:mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 9:58 AM
To: Bob Freund
Cc: Dave Ings; chairs@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC
Administration
do to help?
Agreed. How would the chairs feel about mandating all specs be created
in an OASIS XML format?
m
On Apr 22, 2010, at 12:40 PM, Bob Freund wrote:
How much of this review might be automated?
might be a lot if we had an xml publication format.
On Apr 22, 2010, at 9:24 AM, Dave Ings wrote:
+1
This would really cut down on the iterative churn that seems to
frustrate
the people involved in the publication process. Great idea!
Regards, Dave Ings,
Emerging Software Standards
Email: ings@ca.ibm.com
Yahoo Messenger: dave_ings
<graycol.gif>Hanssens
Bart ---2010/04/22 09:02:30 AM---> Would you like us to review your
specifications prior to TC ballots so you don't need to go back a
From: Hanssens Bart <Bart.Hanssens@fedict.be>
To: Mary McRae <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>,
"chairs@lists.oasis-open.org"
<chairs@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date: 2010/04/22 09:02 AM
Subject: RE: [chairs]
What can
Standards Development / TC Administration do to help?
> Would you like us to review your specifications prior to TC
ballots
so you don't need to go back and fix stuff afterwards?
That would be very helpful indeed, especially for new TC's / people
submitting
specifications for the first time...
Best regards
Bart
--
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
--
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
--
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
--
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)
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