xml-dev - Re: RELAX to ISO

[Rick JELLIFFE <ricko@geotempo.com>]

Jonathan Borden wrote:
 
>     But I do agree that ISO submission of XML would be a Good Thing.

I am interested to know why there is this view.

ISO 8879 (SGML) Annex L  gives an example of an additional requirements
document for XML.   ISO 8879 already gives its users the ability to
create profiles in this way.  James Clark's note at W3C is an excellent
example of this.

There is no need, as far as I know (and I think I proposed Annex L)
unless there is some strange rule in the US, for further standardization
of XML at ISO: it is already available and the standard gives an
explicit example.  In other words you are not using "XML" you are using
"SGML": when anyone uses SGML they agree on the SGML declaration and
perhaps on DTDs and they can agree on an additional requirements
document: it still is "SGML" as explicitly allowed by ISO 8879.

Note that ISO 8879 gives an example of an additional requirements
document for XML but does not standardise XML: that is because it is an
industry profile which belongs to W3C not to ISO--we wanted to give them
the freedom to maintain it (and indeed, we cannot take it from them!)
and develop it.

The SML dev people could define a profile that restricts SGML down to
almost nothing: it would be describable using an SGML declaration with a
SEEALSO parameter identifying an additional requirements document. 
Documents made using this format would be conforming SGML documents.
(However, parsers made to accept the smaller language are not conforming
SGML parsers, but that is the point of the exercise--Annex L was added
to show how to bring non-conforming (subset) SGML parsers into the SGML
family so that their data format is adequately described.)


Rick Jelliffe