DITA TC Meeting Minutes 8 December 2020

["Wegmann, Frank" <Frank.Wegmann@softwareag.com>]

Action Items:

1. Kris will reply to the proposal of Chris Trenkamp on the dita list
2. Robert to add removal of mapkeyref attribute to cleanup issue (https://github.com/oasis-tcs/dita/issues/397)


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Minutes of the OASIS DITA TC
Tuesday, 08 December 2020
Recorded by Frank Wegmann
link to agenda for this meeting:
https://wiki.OASIS-open.org/dita/PreviousAgendas


Attendance:
Zoe Lawson, Kris Eberlein, Stan Doherty, Eliot Kimber, Chris Nitchie, Robert
Anderson, Gershon Joseph, Carsten Brennecke, Scott Hudson, Frank Wegmann, Deb
Bissantz, Jim Tivy


Business
========
1. Roll call
Regrets: Carlos Evia, Keith Schengili-Roberts, Nancy Harrison, Dawn Stevens,
Ãric Sirois


2. Approve minutes from previous business meeting:
01 December 2020
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202012/msg00005.html (Harrison, 04 December 2020)
Provided that the correction posted by Frank
(https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202012/msg00017.html) will be added
to the minutes, approval has been moved by Kris, 2nd by Robert, approved by TC


3. Announcements
none


4. Action items
[no updates, see agenda for complete list]


5. Check-in: How are people doing in this difficult time? How is your state/country doing?
[no official business discussed]


6. Review of DITA 2.0 proposal deadlines
https://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/DeadlinesDITA2.0
[updates only; see above link for complate list]

Stage two
(Kimber) Deprecate or remove copy-to attribute (https://github.com/oasis-tcs/dita/issues/33)
10 December: Eliot to send new proposal to reviewers (Deb, Nancy, Robert)

Stage three
(Nitchie) Add title alts to map (https://github.com/oasis-tcs/dita/issues/16)
11 December: Reviewers to return feedback by EOB


7. Discussion of the proposal for simplifying linking classes in the topic schema
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202012/msg00004.html (Eberlein, 03 December 2020, forwarding a post by Chris Trenkamp on dita-comment, 02 December 2020)

Robert/Kris introducing the idea: According to this proposal basically everything being a link should be a specialization of xref.

Eliot; I'm sympathetic with the idea, but it's not viable. xref is not the right choice, although it makes architectural sense.

Robert; It's not applicable for practical reasons. It would require a massive redesign of the concept of specialization.

Chris; It would have a huge impact on DITA usage, a massive disruption. The benefit is not large enough to justify this.

Eliot; DITA should have the notion of interfaces, like in Java. In DITA there is a strict class hierarchy. / I can't see any justification for this other than architectural purity.
Kris; There is a huge potential cost here: simplification at the expense of complexity. How do we react on this?

Robert; For practical reasons, we cannot follow up on this. We are too close to 2.0, and these disruptions to content model and specializations should not occur in the timeframe of 2.x

Eliot; If we had thought of this in 1999...

***ActionItem: Kris  will come up with a reply on the list.


8. Deleting legacy attribute @mapkeyref?
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/202012/msg00008.html (Anderson, 04 December 2020)

Robert; When looking at the "other" attributes, I came across the mapkeyref attribute, used in DITA 1.0, and which is not related toeyref. That's intuitive...!
The DITA-OT uses the mapkeyref at the time, but it's only used in processing, it is no longer needed.

Kris; I'm fine with supporting the removal.

Eliot; I also support removing it.

Kris; I move we remove it and add it to the GitHub issue of cleanup items.

Robert; I second.

***ActionItem: Robert will add it to the GitHub issue.


9. DITA 2.0 stage two proposals
[no updates]


10. DITA 2.0 stage three proposals

Initial discussion
#345 "New element for resolving variable text"

Kris; Thank you for the very substantial comments from reviewers. One item came up during review, namely, how processors resolve defining the keys. There is one new rule (on page 4 of the proposal). Eliot suggested rule #4: "processor-recognized value". This gives implementors an option if a processor has its own value for the role attribute, so it can apply special processing.

Frank; Could you give an example?

Eliot; In a textbook content, different students could add something like "new student's title".

Kris; Supporting this will not break the rules.

Kris briefly went through the changes to grammar files

Eliot; I thought, it's pretty good.

Kris; It was a very good review. Are there any objections moving it forward for a vote next week?
(No objections.)


11:52 ET close

Frank Wegmann

Software AG â Sitz/Registered office: UhlandstraÃe 12, 64297 Darmstadt, Germany â Registergericht/Commercial register: Darmstadt HRB 1562 - Vorstand/Management Board: Sanjay Brahmawar (Vorsitzender/Chairman), Dr. Elke Frank, Dr. Matthias Heiden, John Schweitzer, Dr. Stefan Sigg - Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender/Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Karl-Heinz Streibich - http://www.softwareag.com