Eliot wrote:
> I don't think it's going to come as a surprise to any 1.1 user that 1.2 is a significant change to DITA.
It might if we continue to claim that DITA 1.2 is compatible with DITA 1.1.
I still hope we do not go forward with option (1), but if we do, I don't think we can continue to claim that DITA 1.2 is compatible with DITA 1.1 and 1.0.
Instead I think we'll need to say something like:
· DITA 1.2 is mostly compatible with DITA 1.1 and 1.0.
· DITA 1.2 is largely compatible with DITA 1.1 and 1.0.
· DITA 1.2 is compatible with DITA 1.1 and 1.0 except for the following changes xxxx, xxxx, ..., and xxxx.
· DITA 1.2 is compatible with DITA 1.1 and 1.0 except for the items listed in Appendix XX of the DITA 1.2 Architectural Specification.
Is anyone working on a draft of the “upgrade guide” chapter or document that we’ve said is needed?
Eliot also wrote:
> Note that the issue with the current release of Arbortext Editor 5.4 is
> *not* the result of this design change, it is the result of a mistake made
> by the Arbortext Editor development team.
It is true that the Arbortext development team (that would be me) made a mistake here, but it is also true that the TC distributed a draft version of the ditabase doctype shell that contained a similar mistake.
And if we can make this sort of mistake, then others will too.
The TC’s mistake will be corrected soon (or quite likely has already been corrected in the DTDs and XSDs that were posted earlier in the week).
And Eliot also wrote:
> So I think we can assume that the current
> Arbortext Issue will be resolved before or very soon after DITA 1.2
> reaches the final stages of approval.
I certainly hope so, but if the TC doesn't make a decision soon we will miss an opportunity to fix this issue in the next maintenance (minor) release for Arbortext Editor.
We’ve got about three weeks to go.
I guess I can go ahead and make a fix of my own design if the TC doesn’t make a decision in time, but my solution is likely to be option (2) and that may or may not be the solution that the TC ultimately chooses.
I'm thinking of starting a betting pool about if DITA 1.2 will be an officially approved OASIS standard before the next major release of Arbortext Editor comes out.
The TC and OASIS have roughly 11 months to get this done to win that race.
At this point it is not clear which side of this bet I’ll take myself.
-Jeff
>
