Re: [dita-fa-edboard] Posting DITA specs to the wiki
From: Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>
To: "Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:52:59 -0500
This is a total disappointment.
Let me attempt to summarize the points
below:
- this would require a change to the
TC process:
yes,
otherwise we'd just do it without asking.
- no one else is doing it:
no
one else was doing focus areas either. OASIS opened the door by providing
a Wiki for DITA. The fact that the Wiki cannot, by OASIS policy, contain
a commentable version of the subject of the Wiki is ridiculous.
- tracking comments:
we
already require signon to make comments in the wiki. Is the bar really
that much lower than the "comments" form on the TC website?
- spec would need to be authored in
XML:
actually,
it would need to be publishable to a Wiki. DITA happens to be in the privileged
position of being used by documentation professionals who have already
encountered that requirement and solved it. But I'm sure equivalent routes
could be found for Word source or HTML if another standard wanted to follow
suit.
The final and overriding point here
is that they think we're the only ones who would benefit. Fine. It took
them two years to notice that we're in their pilot program for Wikis, and
pilot programs create new requirements. Which they are choosing to ignore.
I see two courses of action:
- get other TCs to join us in a petition;
as maintainers of the specs, they should care about the way they engage
with the public, and the comment forms are useless
- get a formal petition out to OASIS
membership, regardless of TC affiliation; as the people who pay for OASIS
to continue, they should care about all the TCs accountability to public
input beyond the scope of the TC.
If we need to drag OASIS kicking and
screaming into the twenty-first century, I'm happy to contribute the first
kicks and screams.
Michael Priestley
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
DITA XML.org Editorial Board,
OASIS staff have been working hard to evaluate the Editorial Board's request
to
make the DITA specifications available for public comment on XML.org. While
we
are all excited by the opportunity to provide a more dynamic mechanism
for
receiving public comments, the project poses several significant challenges
that we feel may be insurmountable at this time.
The OASIS TC Process document (which is intimately connected to our
Intellectual Property Rights Policy) is very specific about the collection
and
handling of public comments. TCs are required to transparently acknowledge,
track, audit, and record the disposal of all public comments--and their
mechanism for doing so is expressly defined as a mailing list. Most other
standards bodies process public comments in much the way OASIS does--and
for
much the same reasons. Encouraging public comments through a wiki would
require
changing our TC Process, and that can only be done by the OASIS Board of
Directors.
We would recommend the Board consider a change if the Wiki comment mechanism
did not require much implementation resources or if it could be used for
most
OASIS specifications. Unfortunately, neither condition is true.
Simply installing a hyperlinked version of the DITA specifications in a
Wiki
would not address the requirements we have for access (user identification)
control and proper comment auditing, leaving DITA open to the risk of
unauthorized contributions and subsequent licensing claims against
implementers. The transactional machinery needed to protect DITA from these
risks would require a significant investment in programming time.
To take advantage of Wiki comments, OASIS specifications would have to
be
authored in XML and the vast majority are not. While the DITA standard,
along
with a handful of others, are authored using structured markup, most are
not.
The resulting HTML does not readily lend itself to the decomposition and
hypertext linking necessary to take advantage of a
wiki-based commenting system.
OASIS IT resources are currently prioritized on projects that benefit a
broader
range of our membership.
Although we do not believe this a project OASIS can take on at this time,
we do
intend to continue to evaluate this issue and hope to revisit it as soon
as
resources allow.
Mary McRae
Manager of TC Administration
OASIS
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