DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 8 February 2011

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

 

DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 8 February 2011
 
Chaired by Don Day <donday@bga.com>
Minutes recorded by Bruce Nevin <bnevin@cisco.com>
 
The DITA Technical Committee met on Tuesday, 8 February 2011 at 08:00am PT for 55 minutes.

8:00-8:05 Roll call

  o Regrets: Thilo Buchholz
  o Quorum was established.

STANDING BUSINESS:

Approve minutes from previous business meeting:

 o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201102/msg00005.html (Doherty)
Don moved, JoAnn seconded, approved by acclamation.

Subcommittee/liaison reports: 

 o OASIS DITA for Programmers Subcommittee

Robert: interest from several people, nothing has happened yet. Don will ask for an update in about a month.

 o OASIS DITA Technical Communication Subcommittee  

Gershon has added a row to their front page, and has put some content into their wiki. Members should look.

BUSINESS:

1. ITEM: Question about the order in which keys are resolved (continued)
   o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201101/msg00057.html (Eberlein)
   o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201101/msg00100.html (Draft posted by Eliot)
   o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201102/msg00010.html (Question by Su-Laine)
   o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201102/msg00009.html (Example suggestion by Su-Laine)
   o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201102/msg00013.html (Request by Kris)

Kris: split this into two agenda items: 
Eliot concurs. Su Laine has more questions coming about key resolution.

(a) how keys are resolved (and how do we push this answer out to people)

Eliot: Draft completed, ready for Adoption TC publishing process. Some clarification of the text needed, but no technical issues raised. 
Su-Laine: There are also minor mechanical issues (e.g. typos). How do we handle ongoing questions? New doc for each question, or keep updating draft? 
Eliot: don't want to delay. Thought all possible questions were answered.

Su Laine: we can answer questions in a variety of ways-dita-users, wiki, etc. 
Kris: some overlapping issues. (1) the feature description, (2) timeframe, (3) what corrective info do we push out to users right now, this month? If there's clarity about some issues, we shouldn't wait to put that out, and we can add as we have further refinements. 
Don: Should we use a FAQ rather than a note? 
Paul: too soon for an article, a FAQ is best now.  
Bruce: Then what's the status of Eliot's paper? 
Eliot: would prefer it to be definitive. 
JoAnn: Adoption feature articles should be addressed to users, not to implementers, as Eliot's paper is. 
Eliot: Yes, could publish the spec doc now, and publish a revision of it if issues come up in the FAQ. 
Su Laine: Any objections to proceeding with a FAQ? (General concurrence). 
Kris: suggest the initial exchange, with an example that Eliot approved, be material for an initial FAQ item. 
Eliot: created an example at the same time that was essentially identical, but touched on an additional possible misinterpretation. 

ACTION (Kris and Eliot): collaborate on a first FAQ item on keyref.

(b) question that Su Laine brought up yesterday: 

In one place, spec says take one item out of <topicmeta>, in another place it says take all. http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201102/msg00010.html 
Eliot: hard to specify, because it's inherently a bit fuzzy. Advice to user is "don't do that", but developer needs to handle edge cases. 
Paul: spec Revision made it even less clear by adding that you can use linktext as well if there's nothing in <topicmeta>. 

The general process will be to develop FAQ items and later roll them into DITA 1.2 corrigenda.

ACTION (All): Review the indicated email, take this up next week, aiming at a FAQ item.

2. ITEM: DITA TC perspective re. new committee notes (continued)
   o report back on Process Committee's Committee Process process

Don: not a very effective discussion at that meeting. (OASIS website makes each discussant in effect take a number wait their turn, Kris was dialing in from an airport on a cellphone and was able to contribute more freely.) Mostly an Adoption TC issue. 
Kris: Next meeting will focus on templates, and that is of concern to us. One other TC had a rep there, who didn't speak up. The issues we are raising are kind of far from the experience of the Process Committee members. The OASIS push for more rigid formal processes may drive TCs to employ less formal means. 
Don: recommend that members read the linked material and think about attending the next meeting.

3. New ITEM: Roadmaps for DITA 1.2 updates, DITA 1.3 process
   o Last week we discussed 6-month target for 1.2 updates--time to make a plan

Don: What's the 6-month mark-from approval, from today? We need to be able to implement the OASIS approval process for an update to the spec. 
Kris: would need to verify, but believe that process is almost the same as that for the spec, maybe a bit simpler. 
Don: need to know how much time do we need to give for public review. Two months is probably OK, but we were a bit surprised last time. 
Kris: The issue is when do we close input for 1.2 and how do we solicit updates and comments-or do we need to? We already have a lot of errata. 
Eliot: Spec has been available for almost two years in essentially its final form. 
JoAnn: a number of organizations deferred looking at the spec until it was final, that's why we're getting questions now. 
Don: is there anything else that is urgent enough to include with the keyref issues in the errata process? If 2 months suffices, and the process takes 6 months, then it will be 8 months before the document goes out. 
Robert: suggest we wait a couple of months and then determine if we should start the errata process at that time. (General concurrence.)

ACTION (Kris): review errata/update process and post a summary
   o Look ahead to DITA 1.3 process (reminder by Robert Anderson)
 o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201102/msg00008.html (Anderson)

Don: this needs to be a full agenda item next week. Kris: near the beginning of the agenda.
Robert: if problems arise with the process in practice, we can address it then. Template for 1.3 is in process. We weren't satisfied with some of the metadata that was collected last time. Once template with high-level description is approved, authors need to come back with the full spec language; some parts were sorely lacking last time.

ACTION (All): review Robert's process description.

5. Continuing ITEM: Review of packaging survey (Buchholz and Hackos action)

   o Survey announcement:
 o http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201101/msg00069.html (Hackos)
 o NOTE: TC members please take this survey, if you have not yet done so.

JoAnn: 17 survey responses to date, will close it by next Friday 2/18.

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