stability of dita 1.2

["Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com>]

I'd like to point out that, at this stage of review--especially
by those on the DITA TC--we should not be making changes that
affect implementations unless absolutely necessary.

The time for designing DITA 1.2 features was long long ago.

To quote JoAnn in the DITA Adoption TC's "DITA 1.2 Specification:
Status Update" white paper:

 In May 2010, the 1.2 Specification was considered complete....

 DITA 1.2 has been ready for use for at least two years. The DTDs
 and Schemas have long been available for download and many early
 adopters have already been successful using the new features of the
 1.2 release.... In fact, few substantive changes have been made
 since the last of the proposals were implemented two years ago.

There are several implementations out there already, and if we
start making changes to DITA 1.2 now that affect compliance of
those implementations, it is likely some of those implementations
will be non-compliant for at least a year given the way development
cycles must occur.  And having non-compliant implementations is
not going to make DITA look any better to users, especially when
the vendors have to explain that the issue was due to the fact
that the DITA TC took three years to come up with DITA 1.2 and
then changed some things at the last minute.

paul