background materials for docstandards telecon today

[Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>]

proposed names

OASIS Interoperability for XML Document
Markup Standards TC
OASIS Metaformat for XML Document Content
TC 

Proposed additional charter information:

- make clear who we are starting with
(DITA, DocBook, ODF) but that we are open to participation from members
of any open standards activity for XML document markup, and for users of
those standards who have cross-standard reuse needs
- make clear what we mean by interoperability,
per the discussion of degrees of interoperability here:
http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/docstandards-interop-discuss/200704/msg00010.html
- provide an illustrative business scenario,
per:
http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/docstandards-interop-discuss/200704/msg00005.html
- provide a list of proposed deliverables:
        -
documented scenarios for cross-standard content sharing, illustrating multiple
levels of interoperability
        -
specification for an interoperability framework, including mappings from
participating standard formats to the framework
        -
requirements on existing standards to improve interoperability

---------------

Here's the original statement of scope
for background - I suspect it will become quite a bit more verbose with
the above concerns taken into account :-)

One of the benefits that XML touted
from early in its inception was that of platform independence. This independence
greatly helped in its widespread adoption,
yet brought with it the unintended consequence of a proliferation of
standardized XML grammars. Document
standards such as DITA (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita), DocBook
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/docbook),
and ODF (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office) all address a
similar need to mark up documentation
in a platform-independent format. 

Increasingly, organizations need to
collaborate and share content with other organizations. As a result, XML
interoperability between these standards
is critical. These standards, however, have not been designed with
cross-standard interoperability in mind.
The Doc Standards Interoperability TC is intended to address the development
and documentation of scenarios for cross-standard
content sharing; a specification for an interoperability framework,
including mappings from participating
standard formats to the framework; and requirements on participating standards
to
improve interoperability. 

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