Re: [chairs] What can Standards Development / TC Administration do to help?

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

[Sorry to be coming late to the party, been a busy few weeks. ]

Mary McRae <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org> writes:
> Agreed. How would the chairs feel about mandating all specs be
> created in an OASIS XML format?

That seems to make life more difficult for (some) editors and not much
different for most readers. I think we'd be more likely to see
usability gains if we mandated a single, normative output format.
Specifically, I'd like to see XHTML with mechanically enforcable and
enforced conventions. A RELAX NG grammar could check some conventions,
Schematron rules others. At the end of the day, a "publication rules"
checker might do some ad hoc analysis as well.

This would make the published specifications uniform and accessible
which seems like a better win for our readers than a selection of
formats derived from a smaller set of input sources.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't dream of editing a spec in anything
*other* than (a particular) OASIS XML format, but that's not going to
be news to anyone :-)

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | Throughout history the world has been
http://nwalsh.com/            | laid waste to ensure the triumph of
                              | conceptions that are now as dead as the
                              | men that died for them.--Henry De
                              | Montherlant

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