xml-dev - Gutenberg Project <longish>

["Frank Boumphrey" <bckman@ix.netcom.com>]

This e-mail is a follow up to the Project Gutenberg pre-announcement
announced earlier on XML-DEV.

We are now ready to start developing a set of formal DTD's for Gutenberg and
other e-texts.

We would like to invite anyone interested in participating in this process
to join with us. (See note at the end of this longish e-mail)

We have in fact started marking up texts with a series of provisional DTD's,
and  have over 100 books and documents already marked up.

See www.hwg.org/opcenter/checkdoc.html for a list of books already marked
up.

Although useful to initiate our project, the provisional DTD's have not been
through a rigorous development process. (Essentially they are mix of DocBook
methodology and Chicago Manual of Style components + a few add ins)

We are now ready to start developing a set of formal DTD's.

The aim is to develop DTD's be suitable for:
      Books
      Poetry
      Plays
      Saga's
      Diaries
      Compendiums
      Letters
      Mixed content
      *Atlases
      *Encyclopedias
      Dictionaries
      Historic Documents
      *Scientific Documents
      *Parallel Translations
      Other

      *These may be too ambitious for our initial DTD's,
       but we should at least have a look at them.

 We assume that these needs can be met by 4 schemas,
    Books
    Plays
    Poetry
    Mixed content

  However it is possible that the needs for other specialized
  schemas will be identified. The first step is to prepare a requirements
document, after that the following processes will be followed for each
schema.

   a. Identifying and classifying the potential DTD components
   and validating needs
   b. Modeling and preparing element lists
   c. Selecting components
   d. Document Analysis report
   e. Build a Document Hierarchy
   f. Build classes, mixes, and Units
   g. Author Preliminary DTD
   h. User Testing
   i. Prepare final DTD
   j. Documentation
   k. Issue final DTD

Although we are starting this process under the patronage of the HTML
Writers Guild, it is our intent to migrate this process to OASIS as soon as
possible (document and markup management will still be carried out by the
HWG).

It is our intention to keep the whole process entirely public. It is in fact
necessary to have a core committee that will, if necessary, vote on any
controversial issues (although it is our aim to operate by consensus).
However all issues will be viewable on public mailing lists. The process
will start off on the HWG mailing list

hwg-gutenberg-dtds@hwg.org

Go to www.hwg.org/lists to join this list. If and when the process is
migrated to OASIS the list may change.

All opinions on this list will be harkened to. If however any one is
interested on being on the core committee, please e-mail me. However a word
of warning. When we move over to OASIS we will be operating under Roberts
Rules which have strict quorum requirements, and we will expect all of the
core committee members to attend meetings. If you cannot make this
commitment, please do not apply. I will be happy to discus further the
implications of this with any one who is interested, but to keep the 'noise'
level down, please e-mail me privately.

Appointment to the core committee is at present done by the Governing Board
of the HWG, but when we move over to OASIS it will be done by the duly
appointed OASIS committee.

It is our intention to post a monthly report of our progress to XML-DEV.

Frank Boumphrey





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