RE: Background on DSSSL

Subject: RE: Background on DSSSL
From: "Mason, James David (MXM) " <MXM@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 15:54:49 -0400
DSSSL Folks:

Ralph has done a good job with summarizing how DSSSL came to be. This spurs
me on to raise a question that has been hanging around my mind for several
weeks:

ISO standards are not forever. They have to be reaffirmed every 5 years. For
DSSSL, that review will happen in 2001. If there is no support for ISO
10179:1996 *in the standards community*, it will not be reaffirmed. 

As Ralph observed, all the key people on the DSSSL project have now moved to
the XSL project. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 has nobody working on DSSSL, though some
of the HyTime people have (because of the events Ralph summarized) a very
strong awareness of what's in DSSSL. However, without a project editor in
SC34 and without national standards bodies that are willing to say that
DSSSL is in use in their countries, the standard will be withdrawn.

We know that there is a small but dedicated community using DSSSL. That
community is probably not plugged in to the international standards process
and so the national bodies won't be aware that there is a user community.

Could DSSSL survive without ISO/IEC approval? I don't see why not. Other
things (e.g., PERL) exist on community support without the intervention of
the formal standards process.

However, if having the ISO/IEC "seal of approval" on your language is
important to you, then you ought to think of how you can go about
maintaining the standard. At the present, SC34 national members include
Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden, UK, and USA. We would welcome additional national bodies, and all
the current national bodies would welcome additional participants.

If you are interested in keeping DSSSL an ISO standard, I'd be glad to
discuss how the process works. Ralph has also been part of the process and
would be willing, I'm sure, to advise you. You could also contact Dr. Yushi
Komachi (komachi@xxxxxxxxxxxx), who is convenor of SC34/WG2, the group
immediately responsible for DSSSL.

Jim Mason


James D. Mason, Ph.D.
Chairman, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34
SAIC
Oak Ridge, TN
423 574 6973
mxm@xxxxxxxx


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