Hi Don. I think that I understand your concerns. I agree that we ought not to preclude interesting use-cases by using exclusive language. But, I take issue with your specific objections.
In the physical world, a structure can be anything from a garden shed to a cathedral. Similarly, the terms "structure," "hierarchy," and "aggregation" include the trivial case where the size of a collection is one. Because of this, I don't think that we are excluding interesting use cases.
Bob
On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 7:28 AM, Don R. Day <> wrote:
On 3/11/2015 4:31 PM, Bob Thomas wrote:
DITA is an XML vocabulary for creating content and
then aggregating it and other resources into a structured
information network.
Hey, Bob, I appreciate your attempt to try to synthesize some of the
new language that Eliot has introduced. Regarding your starting
definition above, we have already defined DITA in this way:
"The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based
architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering
topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and
single-sourced in a variety of ways."
We should not introduce any new appearance of defining DITA as a
particular kind of usage given that we already have a sufficiently
broad definition that encourages new ways of looking at DITA usage.
The redefinition specifically inhibits any thought about accessing
DITA resources as independent Web resources apart from the context
of a map (by the very usage of "aggregation" and "structured
information network"). In the work of the Lightweight DITA SC, we
(I, for one) are keenly focused on DITA for the long tail of uptake
that is completely orthogonal to the business concerns of
traditional publishing, which "aggregation and structured networks"
enshrines.
So we need to be cautious about using this new language in any way
that draws DITA into a role of usage that will limit the freedom of
innovative use going forward. I'm seeing this so clearly now that I
want to ask the TC to consider how the terminology impacts the
vision of adoption that DITA ought to be free to grow into. We may
well want to better define the publishing role using some of the new
concepts, but we've got to keep the door open for innovation beyond
that already well-understood community. This is about DITA for the
rest of us.
--
Don R. Day
Founding Chair, OASIS
DITA Technical Committee
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@donrday
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"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
--T.S. Eliot
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