RE: (dsssl) DSSSL Documentation Project - up for adoption

["Mason, James David (MXM) " <mxm@xxxxxxxx>]

Ian, you're not the only one frustrated.


> It frustrates me greatly that all the XML standards are freely available
> at www.w3c.org... but I can only look at the titles at the ISO site...
> 
> 
This is a running battle that I've been waging with the bureaucrats in ISO
for the better part of two decades, long before there was a Web or a W3C. I
don't want to rehash old history, so I won't.

But my response, fully supported by the original editors of DSSSL, has been
to make all the source materials for the ISO standard (and not just this one
but everything my committee has done since then) available first on FTP and
later on HTTP.

The full SGML source to the DSSSL standard is at
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/WG8/DSSSL/ The DTD:
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/WG8/DSSSL/standcom.dtd

PDF of the standard: http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/WG8/DSSSL/dsssl96f.pdf
(front matter), http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/WG8/DSSSL/dsssl96b.pdf (body)

Anything the DSSSL community wants to do to publicize the existence of these
materials is fine with me. I just ask that you NOT mirror this material
anywhere.

The ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 Unofficial Home Page is at
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/sc34oldhome.htm; links to sources and other
data about several of our standards are at
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/sc34oldhome.htm#standards

As for the copyright to this material, see
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/sc34oldhome.htm#copyright. My excuse for
this action is that the U.S. Taxpayers have paid (many $100k) for this
material to be produced, so it ought to be open to them.

I must, however, say that this is all unofficial. The official SC34 Web Site
is at http://www.jtc1.org. That is indeed under password control. It also
doesn't have DSSSL in any electronic form, so even having the password
wouldn't do any good.

Take a look at some of the other standards you can't get in electronic form
anywhere else:
	HyTime: http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/wg8/document/1920.htm (an
elaborate hypertext archive prepared by the editors)
	Topic Maps: http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/document/0129.pdf

We're doing some other standards that will get the same treatment, several
related to Topic Maps and then our answer to W3 Schema, DSDL (Document
Schema Definition Language), led by James Clark and Ken Holman, with
co-conspirators like Makoto Murata and Rick Jelliffe. DSDL will include
RELAN NG and Schematron (with a place saved for W3 Schema, if they dare put
their thing out for the scrutiny it gets in ISO).


Jim Mason

James David Mason, Ph.D.

Y-12 National Security Complex
Bldg. 9113, M.S. 8208
P.O. Box 2009
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-8208

+1 865 574 6973

Chairman, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/ornlsc34oldhome.htm




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