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Subject: Re: [chairs] Re: Publication templates


Three points in response to this thread.

1. People asking for a native OASIS XML authoring and production
    environment are apparently unaware that an OASIS DocBook
    environment has been in place for several years.  The UBL TC
    (which has a far larger deliverable than most other OASIS TCs)
    has been using DocBook as its primary authoring format since
    2006.  If the wind is blowing in the right direction and our
    release is installed correctly, you can even view our DocBook
    source directly in a web browser, as long as it's IE.  I see
    that Ken Holman (bless him for all the work he's done that you
    guys are apparently completely ignorant of) has pointed to the
    current version.  You want XML authoring?  Use it.

2. Several people in this discussion appear to believe that you
    can create an abstract formatting specification and then make a
    set of tools that will produce identically formatted renditions
    according to this spec in PDF, Word, OpenOffice, HTML, and
    whatever other publishing format you like.  After 30 years
    spent wrestling with this problem (I guess that part is
    generational, isn't it?), I won't tell you that it's impossible
    even in theory to do this, I'll just request that when you've
    successfully created this solution, you'll let the rest of the
    publishing world know.  Don't forget the free XML-to-PDF
    formatter (you could base it on xmlroff; that would be nice),
    and do make sure that the complete set of standard H&J
    dictionaries and footnoting algorithms required to make this
    happen has also been officially codified and is freely
    available to all of us.

3. The physical impossibility of actually getting what some people
    seem to want aside, if you need a specification for formatting
    OASIS documents, OASIS happens to have a mechanism already set
    up for creating stuff like that.  It's called a Technical
    Committee.  I'll believe that the people clamoring for a
    formatting spec really want one when they sit down and create
    it.

Jon



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