Minimum required module support for non-specialization-awareprocessors

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>]

In trying to rework the conformance topic to be more crisp and more
understandable, I wrote this statement:

"A DITA-aware processor is a conforming DITA processor if it implements all
required processing relevant to that processor for all element types defined
in the core DITA map, topic, concept, task, and reference vocabulary
modules."

My reasoning was that conforming non-specialization-aware DITA 1.0
processors should continue to be conforming, so the minimum implementation
requirements should reflect the standard modules provided with DITA 1.0.

Is that a reasonable statement?

Would there be a reason to require non-specialization-aware processors to
build in support for more than the base modules?

Because specialization-aware processors can provide *some* useful processing
for all specializations, standard or not, there's no need to require them to
provide module-specific processing for all modules.

But a non-specialization-aware-but-DITA-aware processor can only provide
reliable processing for those modules for which they have built in
processing based on element type names.

This also suggests that there is, in DITA 1.x, a base "DITA core" that
includes concept, task, and reference. I don't know that we've made that
notion explicit, but the conformance statement seems to require that we do
in order to be able to say something sensible about conforming
non-specialization-aware processors.

The other option would be to require specialization awareness for conforming
processors, but I think that would potentially disenfranchise tools that are
architecturally incapable of direct specialization awareness, such as
FrameMaker.

Cheers,

Eliot

-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 610.631.6770
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com