which tag to use in docbook

["David O'Brien" <david.obrien@redhat.com>]

Hi
I'm relatively new to docbook and hope this is the correct forum for
this type of question.

We're documenting software and often refer to various protocols, etc.,
for example, http, tcp, ssh, telnet, etc. In some instances we discuss
the protocol itself, in others it's included in a list of options, etc.

I originally intended using <systemitem class="protocol"> but for
whatever reason it's not supported in the version we're using (4.3). On
the other hand, these are all abbreviations, so ought I be using
<abbrev>? Is there a case for both depending on context? It may well be
one of those "What does your style guide say?" questions. We're in the
process of writing it  :-)

Thanks for any suggestions, especially references where I can find these
sort of answers myself!  I use the docbook site often but it doesn't
really address these questions.

cheers
-- 
/David

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