XHTML, trans-ws TC, and XHTML

[Robin Cover <robin@oasis-open.org>]

Peter and Andrzej,

May I respectfully add my word of encouragement that the two of you (and 
perhaps others on your TC) review the draft "Artifact Identification Requirements"
(AIR) document with a view to providing feedback about the
need to use XHTML in OASIS final/approved specifications?

Mary McRae wrote:

[q]
I'm thrilled to hear that Trans WS wants to use XHTML to produce their
specifications! I strongly suggest that Peter, Tony and any editors
review the current Artifact Identification Requirements (available at:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/13344/ArtifactIdentifi
cationRequirements-v1.0-wd-15.pdf) which touches on this subject. [/q]

And congratulations to Andrzej, who "has insisted on using XHTML from
the beginning."

The AIR draft guidelines [1] announced for review [2] seem only to
require the use of HTML (not XHTML) in approved versions of TC
documents:

lines 315-316: "For example, when submitting a Public
Review package, the specification(s) must be provided in
both Adobe Acrobat (pdf) and HTML forms."

line 432 mentions an "XHTML-compliant meta element" to be
used in an "index page", but this seems to be unrelated to
any rule that specifications should be in XHTML format.

The AIR document at lines 315-316 is consistent with
the current "OASIS Technical Committee Process" [3],
which says in section 2.18 'Specification Quality' that
"All TC-approved versions of documents (i.e. Committee
Drafts, Public Review Drafts, and Committee
Specifications) must be submitted to the TC's document
repository in the editable source, HTML, and PDF formats."

However, I personally think *both* OASIS documents (AIR,
TC Process) need to be amended -- to require the use of
XHTML in OASIS TC approved work, at least for CS and OS
specification levels:

1) XHTML became a W3C Recommendation in January 2000,
   so it's hardly a "new" standard: this is mid-2005!
2) virtually all modern browsers support XHTML, including
   the (fallback for) mime/media types
3) specs in XHTML format can be queried and otherwise
   processed by XML tools and technologies (XSLT), which
   greatly enhances their usability
4) "HTML" -- note, no particular version of "HTML" is named
   in the AIR or OASIS TC Process documents -- which belongs
   to the earlier generation of (SGML-based) specifications,
   uses a lot of presentational markup that is not
   optimal for information structuring
5) W3C has now produced a seventh public Working Draft
   for XHTML version 2.0 [4], improving upon the previous
   versions; W3C uses XHTML broadly in its technical work;
   OASIS is being left behind in the dust

For these reasons and others, I believe the AIR document
and the TC Process document should mandate XHTML for OASIS
TC (final) spec work.

If you agree, your comments to the oasis-member-discuss list
as part of the AIR review could be strategic in having
this change evaluated by the OASIS Board.  If the members
remain silent, we will probably just muddle along with a
mixture of HTML formats.

**Note that I'm not suggesting XHTML for all materials
contributed to the TC, nor for the very earliest drafts,
nor for casual documents produced every day by the TC.

Thanks for your consideration on this.  I may send a
comment to the oasis-member-discuss list about this, but
the argument will be more effective if it comes from
(paying customer) OASIS members rather than from staff.

Best wishes,
Robin Cover


======== Refs:

[1] 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/13344/ArtifactIdentificationRequirements-v1.0-wd-15.pdf

[2] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200507/msg00001.html
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/members/200507/msg00001.html
"Member review of draft Artifact ID Requirements, by 27 July"

[3] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php

[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-xhtml2-20050527/



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 15:08:23 +0100
From: "Reynolds, Peter" <Peter.Reynolds@bowneglobal.ie>
To: mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org, David Petraitis <david.petraitis@oasis-open.org>,
     James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>,
     Scott McGrath <scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org>
Cc: trans-ws@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [trans-ws] RE: Tran WS TC

Hi Mary, Jamie, David,

Thanks for your help with this. Andrzej, on of our team, has insisted on
using XHTML from the beginning. Using the official CSS stylesheet should
not be too difficult. Thanks for showing where that was. We have done a
lot of work in the past using a WIKI and I think we will be taking you
up on your offer to have an OASIS hosted WIKI quite soon.

Thanks again and have a good weekend,

Peter.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mary McRae [mailto:mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org] 
Sent: 08 July 2005 14:34
To: 'David Petraitis'; 'James Bryce Clark'; 'Scott McGrath'
Cc: trans-ws@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [trans-ws] RE: Tran WS TC

I'm thrilled to hear that Trans WS wants to use XHTML to produce their
specifications! I strongly suggest that Peter, Tony and any editors
review the current Artifact Identification Requirements (available at:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/13344/ArtifactIdentifi
cationRequirements-v1.0-wd-15.pdf) which touches on this subject. 

There is an XHTML template along with a CSS stylesheet that has been
created to match the OASIS-approved style available at:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/templates/index.html. You'll also see sample
documents to use as a guideline. If you have any questions regarding the
templates, feel free to contact me directly at mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org

As you stated, Kavi isn't really set up to manage web pages; the new
home for these documents will be docs.oasis-open.org as identified in
the AIR document. Assuming a shortname of transWS and a version 1.0
spec, the url would be docs.oasis-open.org/transWS/v1.0/  

Also, OASIS is now hosting wikis for all TCs. Jamie and I will be happy
to work with  whoever to get this set up for you. 

Regards,

Mary

---------------------------------------------------
Mary P McRae
OASIS
Manager of TC Administration
email: mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org
web: www.oasis-open.org
phone: 603.232.9090
cell: 603.557.7985



> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Petraitis [mailto:david.petraitis@oasis-open.org]
> Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 2:31 AM
> To: James Bryce Clark; Scott McGrath; mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org
> Cc: trans-ws@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Tran WS TC
> 
> Dear Jamie, Scott and Mary,
> 
> Some questions from the Trans WS concall yesterday. I'm addressing to 
> you because you have the most knowledge in the ins and outs of the 
> technical issues.
> 
> 1. The current draft of the committee spec is in HTML on the Kavi 
> system . There is a CSS style file on Kavi also that Peter Reynolds 
> wants to associate with this so it "looks"
> right. Is there a "how-to" to point him to somewhere or can you help? 
> (While typing this Peter I thought it is possible to physically 
> include the CSS in the HTML as well...)
> 
> 2. The Trans TC would like to avoid proprietary software (Word, Abobe)

> in the creation of the spec. It is currently HTML which is extracted 
> off the Wiki where the work is done.
> Yesterday one member said that he would prefer XHTML. I know that this

> has arisen before in other TC's. Any guidelines for publishing drafts 
> in open formats?
> 
> 3. I noted that the Trans  WS  draft is  still very preliminary. Also 
> that other standards that I track have a
> *lot* of OASIS  boilerplate at the front. Is there standard 
> boilerplate or should Peter just cut and paste off something else that

> looks right? Also the concall brought up yesterday whether XSD's were 
> "part of" the spec or not. I said yes. Is there any usual or 
> recommended way to publish the XSD's?
> (I've seen zip files, and XSD text on other TC's)
> 
> The TC is working towards "rough consensus and working code" 
> before trying to go out of committee with a standard. So the current 
> focus is trying to get a small development funded to do a proof of 
> concept implementation to iron bugs out of the spec before nailing it 
> down. The current spec is judged nearly good enough to start this 
> development.
> 
> Thanks and all the best.
> David
> 
> --
> David Petraitis
> 
> OASIS European Representative
> Work: +41 21 693 4961
> Mobile: +41 79 206 4980
> email: david.petraitis@oasis-open.org
> 


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
generates this mail.  You may a link to this group and all your TCs in
OASIS
at:
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php 




---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
generates this mail.  You may a link to this group and all your TCs in OASIS
at:
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php