DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 23 November 2010

["Bruce Nevin (bnevin)" <bnevin@cisco.com>]

 

DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 23 November 2010

Chaired by Don Day <donday@bga.com>
Minutes recorded by Bruce Nevin <bnevin@cisco.com>
 
The DITA Technical Committee met on Tuesday, 23 November 2010 at 08:00am PT for 18 minutes.

 8:00-8:05 Roll call
* Regrets: Sirois, Kimber, Bissantz
* Quorum established

STANDING BUSINESS:

Approve minutes from previous business meeting:
* http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201011/msg00025.html (Nevin)
Moved by Don, seconded by Dick Hamilton, passed by acclamation.

Subcommittee/liaison reports:
----------------------------
* OASIS DITA for the Web 2.0 Subcommittee
Don will make contact requesting a report next week

Action Items:
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* Review open items: http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/members/action_items.php
No changes this week

BUSINESS:

1. ITEM: Spreadsheet of voting members for canvassing (continued)
o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201011/msg00021.html (Eberlein update)
o The ballot can be viewed at: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ballot.php?id=1968
We currently have sufficient votes to approve DITA 1.2. Doug pointed out that the table of votes in Kavi includes links to send email to voters. Kris and Don emphasized our gratitude to those TC members, most particularly JoAnn, who have reached out to the voters. Further contacts are being made so as to ensure that we remain in safe waters.

2. ITEM: Continued: review of packaging survey (Buchholz and Hackos action)
o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201011/msg00013.html (Buchholz update)
Thilo will send the survey questions to JoAnn, and she will set up the survey instrument so we can review it there. In the meantime, any further comments should go to Thilo.

3. On Hold ITEM: TC discussion about post-1.2 packaging
o Awaiting survey results

4. New ITEM: List of Errata
o http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/SpecFixesFor1.3 (kindly set up by Robert Anderson)

The intention of this page is for obvious, easy fixes such as typographical errors. There is another page for items deferred to DITA 1.3.

JoAnn: Would the new rules consider errata a substantive change requiring another vote? The Adoption TC is in process of meeting with a member of the OASIS Board to protest the application of rules for specifications to the white papers and other documents that they produce, because this severely impairs the productivity and function of that TC. 

The comment was made that we can always produce a committee draft.

We have not produced an official errata document for prior releases, so they’re removing an official process that we’ve never in fact actually used. Approved errata are included among OASIS standard track work products, after approval of a specification draft. This requires a full majority vote (within the TC) and a 15-day public review, and we cannot do it twice within 6 months. This seems reasonable. Because of the 6-month limit, we may want to wait a couple of months to see what other errata may be identified. We will put this back on the agenda in February or March after 3 months or so.

Ongoing checks:
--------------
1. Lessons learned

We need to have serious consideration of OASIS process and discussion with OASIS, and on that basis modify our own process. 

We got comments and feedback at the DITA User’s conference in Europe about where DITA is going. Users want to have a venue for communicating with TC members and Adoption TC members. We need to set up some more formal mechanisms for intercommunication.

We agreed that we should have a report from those who went to DITA Europe. Don will put it in the agenda.

We will commence DITA 1.3 activities in January.

2. dita.xml.org page on build scripts (Stan)
o http://dita.xml.org/wiki/dita-12-specification-building-specification-subsets

Stan: This is going well, expects to have all in order to post by next Friday. 

The ballot closes just before midnight next Tuesday, after our next meeting. What can we do beyond the efforts of OASIS to publicise this? We would like to have a statement that we can all use, like a press release. Typically, Carol Geyer gives us an opportunity to give OASIS material for announcements. We should discuss this in email, and formally invite Carol Geyer to next week’s meeting to discuss how best to publicise the release of DITA 1.2. Don will contact Carol. We have looked at the press releases for DITA 1.1. When we have clarity about all of this from Carol those whose companies are candidates to provide quotes will be able to identify an appropriate executive in their company to do so. This is an opportunity for companies to issue a strategic statement about the value of DITA to their operations.

8:50-8:55 Announcements/Opens
8:55 Adjourn