Re: [docbook] Current version of DocBook and relationship between OASIS / Doc

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

On 5.11.2017 20:48, Eitan Adler wrote:
> What is the relationship between OASIS and DocBook? Both from an
> organizational and specification perspective.

Hi,

I will try to explain, but others feel free to add more information.

OASIS (https://www.oasis-open.org/) is organization that develops
standards. DocBook schema is developed by DocBook Technical Committee
(https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=docbook)
following OASIS process
(https://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process-2017-05-26).

DocBook TC develops only schema for DocBook. There are other important
assets like stylesheets or documentation -- these are developed
independently from OASIS, usually by few volunteers on open-source basis.

> What is prompting this question:
> - http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/docbook-v5.1-os.html
> claims that 5.1 is a OASIS Standard

That's true

> - http://docbook.org/xml/5.1/ appears to be exist, but lacks
> docbook-5.1.zip and does not say "There is a specification for this
> release."
> - http://docbook.org/xml/5.0/ has the zip file and specification sentence

I agree that difference might be confusing but it's not intentional.
Most likely change is caused by change in build system used and people
involved in the process.

If you miss ZIP distribution and link to specification please fill issue
for this at: https://github.com/docbook/docbook.org/issues

> - http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/ shows 5.0 but not 5.1
> - http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/5.0/index.xml says "<para>This
> version has not been released yet.</para>"
> - http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/5.0/index.xml says has an
> ancient rcsdate and references alpha1 even though
> http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/ lists newer versions (betas and
> releases)

Umm, well. Outdated info on oasis-open.org is hard to explain to
outsider. The short story is that process for updating these pages is
not very convenient and thus these pages are outdated. I suggest using

http://docbook.org/xml/

instead. docbook.org domain is under control of DocBook community.
Folders at http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/ should be mirror of
http://docbook.org/xml/ -- but this setup never worked for reasons
explained above.

Hope this helps little bit,

				Jirka


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