Announce: DocBook V5.0b1

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

Hello world,

Although it's taken me a couple of weeks to get the release ready, at the
12 October 2005[1] DocBook Technical Committee Meeting, we approved
publication of DocBook V5.0b1[2] as the first official (test) release of
DocBook V5.0.

I expect a fairly long series of "beta" releases to follow, then a series
of "candidate releases", before we get to an official V5.0, but we are at
last on our way.

As the TC chair and release manager, I probably get more than my share of
the credit for all the hard work that goes into maintaining DocBook. I'd
like to thank everyone on the TC for their hard work in getting to an
official 5.0 release: Steve Cogorno, Gary Cornelius, Adam Di Carlo, Paul
Grosso, Dick Hamilton, Nancy Harrison, Scott Hudson, Mark Johnson, Jirka
Kosek, Larry Rowland, Michael Smith, and Robert Stayton. For the 5.0b1
release, I'd like to thank Jirka in particular. He wrote the majority of
the transition guide and tested each of my attempts at a release build,
catching a number of what would otherwise have been embarrassing errors on
my part! Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone!

In support of the 5.0b1 release there is DocBook V5.0: The Transition
Guide[3] to help you get from 4.x to 5.0. There is also the "5.0" version[4]
(still a work-in-progress) of DocBook: The Definitive Guide[5] and the
specification[6] itself.

The XSL Stylesheets support (mostly) DocBook V5.0 documents, so you
can begin using DocBook V5.0 today.

Let the testing begin in earnest!

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

[1] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook/200510/msg00019.html
[2] http://docbook.org/xml/5.0b1/
[3] http://docbook.org/docs/howto/
[4] http://docbook.org/tdg5/en/
[5] http://docbook.org/tdg/en/

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | It is seldom that any liberty is
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | lost all at once.--David Hume
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee |

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