RE: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC Administration do to help?

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

I wonder whether we get any closer by allowing a diversity of authoring 
markup languages for authoring the specifications, but then using 
format-specific GRDDL profiles to extract consistent RDF triples from 
these specifications.  The triples would express semantics at the level of 
OASIS specification quality requirements and would allow automated 
validation of these requirements. 

In other words, if we can't agree on a "Single Specification Markup to 
Rule them All" then maybe we agree on RDF properties that describe aspects 
of an OASIS specification that are useful to validate in an automated 
fashion, and then develop transforms that create RDF from particular 
specifications where the underlying markup does not already support RDF 
directly. 

-Rob

"Peter F Brown (Pensive)" <Peter@pensive.eu> wrote on 04/23/2010 01:40:11 
PM:
> RE: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC Administration do to 
help?
> 
> OK, clear.
> 
> The draft deliverables are generally some combination of text and 
> schema. For the schema, this would not seem to be a problem, given 
> the range and quality of parsing and validation tools. For the text,
> it would seem that we can only automate a check on the "semantic" 
> structure: "are all sections present in the document that are 
> required  by the template?"
> 
> I'm still not convinced that anyone has proposed a solution to this:
> the challenge would seem to be to securely map and bind content 
> structures (headings, paragraphs, etc) of a document schema 
> (DocBook, DITA, OOXML, etc) to specific content blocks ("Abstract", 
> "Notices", "Normative references", "Conformance", etc)
> 
> Peter
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frederick Hirsch [mailto:frederick.hirsch@nokia.com] 
> Sent: Fri, 23 April 2010 10:24
> To: Peter F Brown (Pensive)
> Cc: Frederick Hirsch; chairs@lists.oasis-open.org; Mary McRae
> Subject: Re: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC 
> Administration do to help?
> 
> One aspect that is broken is requiring Staff to meticulously review 
> publication submissions for corrections, where this could be 
> automated. I don't have the details, but believe it includes 
> conformance to templates, style, required sections etc. This is where 
> this discussion started. Maybe Mary or others have the details of what 
> time consuming checking is currently required.
> 
> regards, Frederick
> 
> Frederick Hirsch
> Nokia
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 23, 2010, at 12:07 PM, ext Peter F Brown (Pensive) wrote:
> 
> > Could someone clearly sum up what is broken and requires fixing?
> >
> > The initial post included a range of ideas from staff to improve TC 
> > work. We are now discussing the (de-)merits of an XML editing suite.
> >
> > Peter
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Robin Cover [mailto:robin@oasis-open.org]
> > Sent: Fri, 23 April 2010 08:54
> > To: Frederick Hirsch
> > Cc: ext Mike Edwards; chairs@lists.oasis-open.org; Mary McRae
> > Subject: Re: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC 
> > Administration do to help?
> >
> > On Fri, 23 Apr 2010, Frederick Hirsch wrote:
> >
> >> Example:
> >>
> >> An example of how new tools can evolve is the new emerging use of 
> >> ReSpec in
> >> W3C, not mandated by the organization. This is HTML 5 with special 
> >> markup
> >> that is processed within the browser by Javascript to create all 
> >> the markup,
> >> boilerplate etc automatically, including shared bibliographic 
> >> references and
> >> formatting. Makes editors life much easier, while also enabling 
> >> conformance
> >> to organizational publication rules and style. (Previous efforts to
> >> hand-craft HTML or use XML in a build environment were not very 
> >> editor
> >> friendly)
> >>
> >> No makefile, no build, no special tools other than support for 
> >> Javascript in
> >> the Browser and the use of HTML 5.
> >>
> >> I'm not saying this is the tool for OASIS, but an example of grass- 
> >> roots
> >> adoption of a tool to ease editing and publication to solve this 
> >> sort of
> >> problem (thanks to Robin Berjon for creating it). I understand a v2 
> >> is in the
> >> works.
> >>
> >> http://dev.w3.org/2009/dap/ReSpec.js/documentation.html
> >>
> >> regards, Frederick
> >>
> >> Frederick Hirsch
> >> Nokia
> >
> > Thanks, Frederick.  Indeed, W3C has an extensive set of tools (and a 
> > couple different
> > tool chains) to assist spec authors/editors in writing specifications,
> > automatically including correct citations and references (using a 
> > citation-
> > picker that addresses a bibliographic database), etc.  I think it's 
> > relatively
> > easier to create tools for documents that use descriptive markup than
> > for word-processor files.  Well... easier for most people.
> >
> > Anish Karmarkar [Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com] notes the benefits
> > of using the W3C environment, but mentioned that use of the
> > XML Spec tool chain can require (or did, at one time) a bit of
> > a learning process:
> >
> >   The biggest issue that I found in w3c (this was a few years
> >   ago and things may be better now), in working in XML and
> >   using XSLTs to generate HTML was that the diff-ing of the
> >   output (HTML) was woefully inadequate. So when an editor
> >   made large scale changes, it was hard for the WG members to
> >   figure out exactly what changes were made by looking at the
> >   HTML.
> >
> > http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/chairs/201004/msg00053.html
> >
> > But in recent times, the W3C Staff have provided additional tools
> > for generating colored diffs, and these are regularly published
> > as non-normative format:
> >
> > http://xml.coverpages.org/specProduction.html#w3c-html-diff
> >
> > More broadly speaking: both W3C and IETF have built up considerable
> > resources for using structured information standards (e.g., XML, XSLT,
> > CSS, XHTML) in the authoring, QA checking, and publication process.
> > It's a chicken-and-egg problem, though: nobody wants to support
> > the development of tools they believe might be too difficult to use.
> > Some 18,000 people in IETF use the IETF tools without (? much)
> > complaint, and that includes several key XML tools.  Naturally,
> > someone can point out that IETF people and specs are different....
> >
> > Everyone is probably familiar with the W3C Validiation Tools,
> > including the Link Checker, which I strongly recommend for use
> > by OASIS TCs where the editors do not have local-computer tools:
> >
> > http://validator.w3.org/checklink
> >
> > For a survey (not up-to-date) of W3C and IETF tool chains based
> > upon standards, please see:
> >
> > http://xml.coverpages.org/specProduction.html#w3c
> > http://xml.coverpages.org/specProduction.html#ietf
> >
> > If we set some goals (viz., requirements), we might be able to
> > conscript more OASIS members who have coding talent to help
> > improve the OASIS spec-production tools.  I note for example,
> > that one member of an OASIS TC maintains a tool for XSLT
> > transformation of concert RFC 2629-compliant XML (see [RFC2629])
> > to various output formats, such as HTML, PDF, CHM.
> >
> > http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc2629xslt/rfc2629xslt.html
> >
> > Finally: some of the desiderata mentioned in this 2010-04 thread have
> > been incorporated (months ago) into the formal requirements for
> > an OASIS document management system -- while languishing in
> > the execution, this system should provide a range of workflow
> > and automation tools for support of specification authoring,
> > editing, reviewing, QA checking, and publication (viz., through
> > the entire specification lifecycle).  Send email if you would
> > like to become involved in that design and development
> > activity.
> >
> >  - Robin
> >
> > Robin Cover
> > OASIS, Director of Information Services
> > Editor, Cover Pages and XML Daily Newslink
> > Email: robin@oasis-open.org
> > Staff bio: http://www.oasis-open.org/who/staff.php#cover
> > Cover Pages: http://xml.coverpages.org/
> > Newsletter: http://xml.coverpages.org/newsletterArchive.html
> > Tel: +1 972-296-1783
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Apr 23, 2010, at 3:10 AM, ext Mike Edwards wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Folks,
> >>>
> >>> If an XML publication format is proposed, what are the tools that 
> >>> you
> >>> expect the folks
> >>> developing the specs to use?
> >>>
> >>> There is no point in automating the back end of the process if we 
> >>> make the
> >>> front end of
> >>> the process slower.
> >>>
> >>> Yours,  Mike.
> >>>
> >>> Strategist - Emerging Technologies, SCA & SDO.
> >>> Co Chair OASIS SCA Assembly TC.
> >>> IBM Hursley Park, Mail Point 146, Winchester, SO21 2JN, Great 
> >>> Britain.
> >>> Phone & FAX: +44-1962-818014    Mobile: +44-7802-467431
> >>> Email:  mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> From:
> >>> Bob Freund <bob.freund@hitachisoftware.com>
> >>> To:
> >>> Dave Ings <ings@ca.ibm.com>
> >>> Cc:
> >>> Mary McRae <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>, "chairs@lists.oasis- 
> >>> open.org"
> >>> <chairs@lists.oasis-open.org>
> >>> Date:
> >>> 22/04/2010 17:41
> >>> Subject:
> >>> Re: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC Administration do 
> >>> to help?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Unless stated otherwise above:
> >>> IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with 
> >>> number
> >>> 741598.
> >>> Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire 
> >>> PO6 3AU
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> 
>