RE: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name

["David RR Webber \(XML\)" <david@drrw.info>]

Michael,

 

Your clarifications appear to open up the Pandora's Box again!

 

However - seizing on your "we can start small and grow" - and wanting to clarify what that means.

 

Notice you can always ADD things to your charter later - once you have finished the initial work!

 

So - what I was seeing you had said before on DITA + xhtml + extensions - is at odds with - "the interoperability story may include a common "hub" interchange format (not something authored directly)"

 

Again - this seems the exact quagmire that we want to avoid. 

 

If you simply create a template format that matches the goals of having something clear and simple for document content and stop there - then you avoid the "how do I convert format XYZ into the format and then out to format ZYX?" - and leave that up to the individual vendors to sort out for their own products.

 

Also - if you claim some kind of interoperability - then people are going to notice that your format is loosey - and then you get into extensions of extensions to support legacy this and that requirement. 

 

More ugly - but more to the point - you slip down the "BPEL" slope and people begin to wonder if you will ever start or finish or release a spec'!?!

 

Better in my judgement to start small - create something highly usable that people can implement right away - 80:20 rule - (xhtml certainly fits that bill) - and then circle back around to tackle the bigger issues later - once they are better understood.

 

Hopefully by then - as Peter noted - people will have got used to the fact that they don't need all that WISYWIG stuff anyway for what the business needs are - and that rendering is a separate vendor layer!

 

DW

 

"The way to be is to do" - Confucius (551-472 B.C.)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name
From: Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>
Date: Tue, April 24, 2007 10:44 am
To: "David RR Webber (XML)" <david@drrw.info>
Cc: Dave Pawson <dave.pawson@gmail.com>,
docstandards-interop-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org, Peter F Brown
<peter@pensive.eu>


A few clarifications from my point of view:

- I believe standards such as legalXML should be in scope. We already have three standards groups interested, specifically ODF, DITA, and Docbook, that operate at different levels of specificity, and DITA in particular is quite capable of being as specific as LegalXML or more so, through its specialization mechanisms.

- that said, we don't need to include every possible XML document standard under the sun in our initial launch, we can start small and grow. One of the reasons to pick DITA, ODF, and DocBook initially is because they are all OASIS standards that are within our scope. LegalXML would be welcome, and there has been some discussion of S1000D joining as well.

- "document interchange" as a goal is different from "document standards interoperability". If all we wanted was document interchange, we could just all agree to use DITA :-)  But if we have different groups using different standards, then it's really good for those users if the standards bodies themselves have already figured out an interoperability story.

- a key implication of the previous paragraph is that we need participants from those standards bodies, not just participants who use the standards. We cannot drive interoperability between document standards without participation from those who define the standards.

- the interoperability story may include a common "hub" interchange format (not something authored directly), as well as requirements on the participating standards to define common architectural attributes to identify versions, customizations, specializations etc. - but that's putting the cart before the horse. First we need to agree on the goal, before we can work to agreement on the route.


Michael Priestley
IBM DITA Architect and Classification Schema PDT Lead
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25

"David RR Webber \(XML\)" <david@drrw.info>

04/24/2007 10:18 AM

To	Peter F Brown <peter@pensive.eu>
cc	Dave Pawson <dave.pawson@gmail.com>, docstandards-interop-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject	RE: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name

Peter,
 
I think your use case is the antithesis here!  The typical user is NOT the average person noodling using MS Word for WSYIWG!!  Instead there is some business task / service being performed associated with the content.
 
Notice that xhtml provides an established control set here of typical page content components - bulleted lists, tables, graphics, header, title, bookmarks, links - that go a long way to reducing the choices down to a common set.
 
But we need some limited extensions for things like ToC, footers and such that are missing from the pure browser metaphor.
 
Instead of general users - you have business staff preparing technical documents - here's what I envision as a partial list:
 
1) Software documentation
2) Engineering documentation - aircraft, vehicles, engines, et al
3) Hardware and firmware documentation
4) User guides for technical equipment
5) Short legal document / contract preparation (1 to 3 page stuff)
6) Wiki style content submissions

"The way to be is to do" - Confucius (551-472 B.C.)


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name
From: "Peter F Brown" <peter@pensive.eu>
Date: Tue, April 24, 2007 10:04 am
To: "David RR Webber (XML)" <david@drrw.info>
Cc: "Dave Pawson" <dave.pawson@gmail.com>,
<docstandards-interop-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org>

David:
I appreciate the clarifications – I missed the early exchanges on the list.
I still can’t get my head around “a simple XML format for documentation” – what is the scope of (intended) use? Could someone give, say, half a dozen examples of document types that might be covered? Given that most people use 2-3% of the functionality of any word processing package, but everyone uses a *different* 2-3%, it might be difficult identifying the sub-set, that’s my worry…
 
Regards,
Peter
 
From: David RR Webber (XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent: 24 April 2007 09:47
To: Peter F Brown
Cc: Dave Pawson; docstandards-interop-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name
 
Peter,
 
We had this big discussion two weeks ago.  The current scope text is misleading.  It is my understanding that the whole idea is to NOT get immersed in the OOXML / ODF / PDF quagmire - but instead to provide a simple XML format for documentation purposes - envisioned as a blend of DITA + xhtml + extensions and an XSD.
 
Notice that content authoring tools already support use of XSD templates to instruct the creation of conforming documents - including MS Word, Corel, ODF, and then specialized editors such as XMetal.  So published templates can then be used in a variety of tools to produce the XML content instances themselves.  
 
This would allow the EU to publish templates for documents that would work in any any desktop tool supporting it.
 
In essence this sidesteps the current generation of syntaxes - which are focused much on WYSIWYG content production - rather than content semantic and formatting alignment.
 
Given all that - a simple TC name should elucidate the focus here - and not lead people into thinking the problem being solved is some bigger uber-solution.
 
Thanks, DW

"The way to be is to do" - Confucius (551-472 B.C.)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name
From: "Peter F Brown" <peter@pensive.eu>
Date: Tue, April 24, 2007 9:39 am
To: "Dave Pawson" <dave.pawson@gmail.com>,
<docstandards-interop-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org>

In a European context, "documentation" would nearly always equate to
"technical documentation" and be understood as things like DocBook and
not, say, legislative texts, business documents, etc.
 
But:
- when does a legislative document get covered by LegalXML?
- when does a business document get covered by UBL?
We can easily get lost: it should be more specific than any "XML
document" but less specific than particular "XML application"
documents.
 
I understood the scope to be about interoperability between "generic"
documents generated by "all-purpose" word-processing software, be that
in ODF, DocBook, etc - but that begs the more fundamental question:
why isn't the biggest document production platform included, that
generates OOXML? The scope of the proposed TC needs to be serious in
addressing this dimension, or it will be a fool's errand.
 
Has anyone compared the scope with the new activity in the European
Commission on "Open Document Exchange Formats" (!= ODF)? Could this be
a collaborative effort? Is their title more useful?
 
I think the proposed TC needs to be MUCH clearer about its scope
before it'll get our vote.
 
Peter
 
 
-------------
Peter F Brown
Founder, Pensive.eu
Co-Editor, OASIS SOA Reference Model
Lecturer at XML Summer School
---
Personal:
+43 676 610 0250
http://public.xdi.org/=Peter.Brown
www.XMLbyStealth.net
www.xmlsummerschool.com
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Pawson [mailto:dave.pawson@gmail.com]
Sent: 23 April 2007 14:32
To: docstandards-interop-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [docstandards-interop-discuss] proposed TC name
 
On 23/04/07, David RR Webber (XML) <david@drrw.info> wrote:
>
> I actually quite like Eduardo's:
>
>  Documentation Standards Interoperability TC.
>
> "Documentation" is vague enough IMHO - and people will likewise need
to read the charter for explicit clarifications
 
I like the terseness and yes, the generality.
All it means is we need clarification early on in the web pages /
actual standard
to scope the work, which is no bad thing IMHO.
 
 
> I'm not
sure I'd go into machine v human readable - since that
distinction is rapidly being eroded by smart machine agents.
 
Yes, I find that (potentially) too constraining. Most will stay one
side of their own
boundaries, but that doesn't mean that the other side is out of scope?
 
regards
 
 
--
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk
 
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