[docbook] Re: Wondering About Stable OASIS URIs

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ "John L. Clark" <jlc6@po.cwru.edu> was heard to say:
| In July there was a note from a TC agenda that stable URIs would be
| setup[0] (I assumed/hoped for the DocBook 4.3 DTDs).  However, the
| DocBook XML page on OASIS[1] still claims that "DocBook XML V4.2 is the
| current XML version of DocBook" and does not have a link to V4.3
| resources.  For all the standard reasons, this is irksome.

Indeed. Not least of all to me. However, I've been discussing the
situation with the webmaster at OASIS and I believe we are very close
to resolving the problem.

| Is there any possibility of action on this front in the near future?

The problem here is broken web pages, not a breakdown in the DocBook
development process. We produce 4.3 officially back in March/April. I
apologize for the delay in getting the web pages at OASIS updated.

| Can we expect a better turnaround time for 4.4 once it is finalized?

I hope that we can make 4.4 official at the November TC meeting.

| (What's the "correct" term for "finalized" in OASIS circles these days?)

OASIS is about to update the TC process document. When that's done,
the 4.4 DTD will be able to become a "Committee Specification". We
might also pursue full OASIS Standard for 4.4, but that's not a
decision that's been made officially yet.

| On a related by separate matter, what's the game plan for migration to
| DocBook NG?  Will it become DocBook 5.0 (or 6.0) or will it forever live
| in experimental land?

As Jirka pointed out, our new charter says we're going to do it. It's
going to be a large and disruptive change, so I think there's value in
having a long period of experimentation. That said, it would probably
be a good idea for the experiments to become "DocBook TC experiments"
instead of "Norm Walsh's experiments" sooner rather than later.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | A man is not necessarily
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | intelligent because he has plenty
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | of ideas, any more than he is a
                                   | good general because he has plenty
                                   | of soldiers.-- Chamfort

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