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Subject: Re: [docbook-tc] DocBook for Commercial Publishing (expanding our world view)
Hi Scott, Actually, there is something in our charter about it: "Most requests for enhancement that are not motivated by a requirement in computer hardware or software documentation are considered out of scope. It is not a goal of the Technical Committee to expand the scope of DocBook to include additional, unrelated problem domains." http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/docbook/charter.php Bob Stayton Sagehill Enterprises DocBook Consulting bobs@sagehill.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Hudson" <scott.hudson@flatironssolutions.com> To: "DocBook Technical Committee" <docbook-tc@lists.oasis-open.org> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 7:58 AM Subject: [docbook-tc] DocBook for Commercial Publishing (expanding our world view) > All, > > According to TDG, "DocBook is a very popular set of tags for describing > books, articles, and other prose documents, particularly technical > documentation." > > Unless there is something specific in our charter that says we should > only consider tech pubs features when adding or modifying the DocBook > standard, I'd really like to see us (the TC) approach new RFEs with a > broader perspective, specifically commercial publishing. > > You already are aware that O'Reilly has created a "DocBook Lite" variant > in order to publish their document. They are not alone, and in fact, we > do business with a number of large-scale commercial publishers at > Flatirons. There are some issues with the current element set, that > force us to create variants of DocBook in order to support commercial > publishing needs, rather than being able to create valid subsets. > > As for new features to support commercial publishing, here is a short > list of items I've been considering adding as RFEs to DocBook: > > 1. Add a new <periodical> element to support regularly published > material, such as a Magazine or Journal issue, blog, newsletters, and > even topic, if that should also be added to DocBook. The <periodical> > element will be a sibling of <book> and <article>. A whole new blog tool > and infrastructure could be supported with the use of <periodical> and > <topic>, assuming that <topic> were allowed to contain <section>. Of > course, the same could be done with <article> as a child of <periodical>. > > I think periodical was submitted and rejected back in March > (https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=384107&aid=1440204&group_id=21935), > but it is rather clunky to think of a magazine or newsletter or journal, > etc. as a "book" for containment. > > 2. Extend <set> to include <periodical> in order to publish or contain a > series of this type of content. > > 3. Add <cover> element to <book> and <periodical> as an optional > element. There are a lot of variations in the type of content that could > be included in a cover, including title, cover image, jacket text > (perhaps sidebar could be used for this), etc. Instead of putting all > this in the info element, this separate element would provide a clear > distinction of what content should be included in the cover for the > particular publication. > > I bring these items up because I'm finding DITA to be rather unfriendly > towards traditional commercial publishing. I think we could gain some > very powerful allies if we were to focus a bit on the needs of > commercial publishing rather than restrict our scope so narrowly to > software and hardware documentation! > > Software and hardware documentation blocks and inlines should be a > separate module available in DocBook 5, as well as other domain-specific > modules. Perhaps periodical-specific blocks and inlines could be > separate modules as well! > > From the recent traffic on the list, there appears to be a fair amount > of backlash against adding topic, and a call to "stick with what DocBook > is best at". I think focusing on the needs of commercial publishing will > continue to grow the DocBook user base and opportunities for DocBook to > be implemented. > > Thoughts? > > Best regards, > > --Scott >
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