To James - The DSSSL bazaar and the cathedral

["Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi James,

As you noticed, several people in the DSSSL community are ready to build a
common site or web of sites and resources about DSSSL. They are also ready
to offer some of their precious time to organize the community production,
promote DSSSL, experiment with it, improve it, make it grow, make it more
useful.

Actually there are some problems:
a) the community adds or modify things in Jade. This is the most positive
thing we can envision, it means that now Baby Jade has more than one parent
to care of its growth :-). The problem is that we need a mechanism for patch
posting, modification posting, distribution, tests, etc. Feedback to
producers, track record of patches and links to producers, etc...
b) Also, the DSSSL community stopped selling DSSSL to the world. We need to
improve this facet. If we can at least have some articles telling that DSSSL
can _be used_ for XML _and_ SGML. This is an improvement on the actual
situation and a better world for the users (freedom of choice and freedom
based on knowing the alternatives or said from a pragmatic perspective: the
right tool for the right job)
a) We need a common site on which the patch could be posted and a list of
volunteers that can validate these patches. People would know that these
volunteers would answer to producers, take care of the integration and do
the follow up for the tests.
b) We need more content about DSSSL, text, articles, tutorials, etc... We
also need one or more than one site that organize this content.
c) We need new experiments with DSSSL for new ISO standards like for
instance topic maps or for W3C future be standards like RDF. Example with
document types like ATA 100 (SGML document type for the aviation industry)
d) We need documents that make bridges or compare to other style sheet
languages like for instance CSS or XSL.

Simply said, we need to bring some life to DSSSL

Situation:
a) several people concerned with the DSSSL future expressed their will to
help build a community site or a web of sites
b) Several help proposal are on the table. The DSSSL community has several
voluntaries who wants to see baby Jade grow to its next life stage and
refuses to see it dying because of a lack of care. This, mainly because the
DSSSL community uses this tool for day to day real productive activities.
c) we have several volunteer to do some of the Job.

Proposals:
a) a CVS site
b) a site or Web of site about DSSSL resources.
c) a list of people who take care of some tasks: integration, builds, tests.


Suddenly, DSSSL has the opportunity to build its own bazaar. So let this
bazaar build its own cathedral. (to retake some well known metaphor)

James, Do you have any thoughts on this? Any suggestions? For practical
matters, do have in mind any process?

Regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com












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