Re: Re : db2??????? vs. SGMLTools2 vs. what else?

[Eric Bischoff <ebisch at cybercable dot tm dot fr>]

Jochem Huhmann wrote:
> 
> Sorry, no, I don't talk only about Debian. The tools (and file locations
> and such) needed to process SGML with jade and DSSSL are packaged in a
> different way in every single Linux-Distribution and sometimes there are
> also additional packages, which do this in one more different way.
> 
> One should see that "docbook-tools" actually are "tools for processing
> SGML with jade", not "tools for processing DocBook". The tool-chain for
> processing a DocBook file may also include eg. Emacs with PSGML (for
> editing) and also PSGML needs to know where to find the catalog. If
> someone wants to use or to write other tools for processing DocBook he
> also needs some basics to rely on. So you *can't* wrap up everything and
> put it in one package again and again. If there where some common
> standard for file locations and catalog handling, the user could plug in
> whatever he needs or wants and every application could rely on finding
> things.

This is exactly what I have been starting. The problem with the current
DocBook tools is that everything is mixed up in /usr/lib/sgml, so I
wouldn't say it is a good base for standardization. Of course starting a
new directory layout is not a way of standardizing things, but the
previous messages in this list show that I haven't been the only one to
feel that need.

> I would like to see a situation where a software developer just can use
> a Makefile to build HTML and Postscript versions of his software
> documentation on a Linux system, *without* to care about the wrappers
> and tools and file locations found on a random distribution. We will
> never get there if Caldera and Redhat and SuSE and Debian come with
> their own wrappers and file-locations.

100% agree.

> I see that you are trying to get this mess cleared up and that's great,
> but IMHO this has to be discussed with authors of other wrappers and
> maintainers of packages. I'm using Redhat systems since 4.0, Caldera
> since that "Caldera Network Desktop 1.0", Debian since 2.0 and SuSE
> since "S.u.S.E. 11/94"; if getting software compiled would have been
> such a mess as getting a SGML file rendered to a readable or printable
> format I never would have bothered with Linux.

Yeap. But here is maybe the greater place to do this standardization
work, because it is the only maintained and active project. We can make
the things more official in front of LSB if needed afterwards.

> Looks like you (or someone else) should write up a proposal, post it to
> lsb-discuss@lists.linuxbase.org and cc it to all the maintainers and
> packagers and related lists (like sgml-tools@via.ecp.fr)... I'm quite
> sure that a lot of people being busy with regard to DocBook on Linux (or
> FreeBSD, which is quite comfortable with DocBook, the FreeBSD-Handbook
> is DocBook) are not reading this list.

Can you do that as soon as we have the technical details mailing list
set up and running ? I'm not familiar with these lists you're
mentioning.
-- 
Eric Bischoff  -  Documentation and Localization
Caldera (Deutschland) GmbH - Linux for Business!
Tel: +49 9131 7192 300 -  Fax: +49 9131 7192 399
http://www.caldera.de/