Re: Publication templates

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

Mary McRae <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org> writes:
>   The DocBook templates for Standard Track Work Products live at
> http://docs.oasis-open.org/templates/DocBook/spec-0.5/ and were
> prepared by Ken Holman with help from several members of various TCs
> who are using DocBook as their authoring platform. The package
> includes everything needed. Any questions about its use should be
> directed to Ken with the understanding that he's a volunteer and may
> not be able to respond immediately.

I've seen those, and I greatly appreciate the time and energy that Ken
has put into providing them.

That said, I find them unsatisfactory in some regards. They are based
on DocBook V4.x and an older set of XSLT 1.0 stylesheets.

Also, it's not clear to me that the template includes support for all
of the new document types introduced in the process: committee
specification drafts, public review drafts, and specs; candidate OASIS
standards, OASIS standards, approved errata, committee note draft,
committee note public review draft (!? see other message), and
commitee note.

Of course, since I can't find a formal publication specification for
any of these formats, I could be mistaken.

>   The DITA TC has been working on a similar environment but it is not
> yet ready/packaged and therefore not yet made available to a wider
> audience.

I find this a somewhat puzzling approach. Suppose I have editable
markup in some other XML format? Surely the TC Administrator does not
want to be responsible for every conceivable XML vocabulary that I
might use to edit an OASIS Specification?

Is there not a set of publication specs for the various document types
described in the process? If not, how can you *tell* if a document
conforms to them?

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | Noble patterns must be fetched here and
http://nwalsh.com/            | there from single persons, rather than
                              | whole nations, and from all nations,
                              | rather than any one.--Sir Thomas Browne

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