DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 14 June 2011

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

DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 14 June 2011

Chaired by Kristen Eberlein <keberlein@stl.com> 
Minutes recorded by Bruce Nevin <bnevin@cisco.com>
DITA TC Wiki: http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/FrontPage

The DITA Technical Committee met on Tuesday, 14 June 2011 at 08:00am PT for 55 minutes.
8:00-8:05 Roll call
  o  Regrets: Don Day
> Quorum was established.

STANDING BUSINESS:
Approve minutes from previous business meeting:
  o  http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/email/archives/201106/msg00018.html
    (Bruce Nevin, 7 June 2011)
Acceptance moved by Kris, seconded by Stan, approved by
acclamation.

Subcommittee/liaison reports:

ACTION (Bruce): Notify OASIS DITA Technical Communication
Subcommittee that they should be prepared to report due next week.

Announcements:

  o  Conversation with new TC Administrator, Chet Ensign
Kris and he focused on outstanding requests: Style rules for non-
normative docs and a template for slide deck presentations. He
will be moving these forward.

Action Items:

  o  Review open items: http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/members/action_items.php
> Stan has been harvesting actionable 1.3 items from email threads, and will take item 0121.

BUSINESS:

1. New ITEM: DITA 1.2 DTDs and spec not in synch (task model 
relaxation)
   * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201106/msg00002.html
     (Jang Graat)
   * Original proposal: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/26791/IssueNumber12011v1.2rev3.html
   * http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita/email/archives/201106/msg00020.html
     (Jang Graat's response, 7 June 2011)

The Machine Industry needs a plurality of <steps> elements in
<task>. Robert remembers discussion about people wanting this, but
is unable to help reconstruct any process omitting it as he was
not closely involved. There is an internal contradiction in the
language reference: the text says this is supported, and the
content model shows that it isn't. Jang expected to use the
general task model, which was thought to permit more than one.
(Strict task only allows one.) The TechComm SC is considering a
proposal for troubleshooting topic that would permit a plurality
of steps. 

ACTION (Kris): email Jang, confirming that the Machine Industry SC
should submit a proposal for DITA 1.3 for plural <steps> elements
in a task. 

2. ITEM: Triage of DITA complexity list and potential solutions

   * Wiki page: "What do people (really) mean when they say "DITA
is too complex"?

Users would like to have a set of example files that are known to
work properly. Although example files are useful to the Adoption
TC for inclusion in feature articles, that TC should not be
expected to create them. 

The keyref article has example files, but they are difficult to
find. We should list dita.xml.org in the spec. The Adoption TC can
create and post an index to example files.

The TC is unlikely to create a master set of example files. We can
help the Adoption TC with examples, and we can work to create
better examples in the spec. It would be nice to have something
like the S1000D 'Bicycle' example. What can we do to move links to
such resources higher in a google search? There are several non-
normative books about DITA coming out this year, this will help.
We should prepare example files for major use cases at the same
time as developing a feature, keeping clear the distinction a test
suite. Doing this in advance of tool support is fraught with
challenges. The Adoption TC can publicize them and use them in
feature articles. A code snippet doesn't help unless you know how
to integrate it into a working file. Once features are released,
we may be able to invite members of the DITA community to
contribute example files. The Adoption TC might keep an eye out
for potential contributors among the users. 

We've exhausted the usefulness of the solutions matrix. Stan will
summarize results from minutes and other notes of our discussions.
We will review his summary next week, and then begin work on our
initial list of 1.3 proposals.

ACTION (Stan): Summarize results from the 'DITA complexity'
discussion.

8:55 PT Adjourn