DITA 1.2 conformance section

This is consistent with our 
discussion (on the call) of incremental improvement wrt conformance. I don't 
remember hearing any dissent.


  
  
  From: Ogden, Jeff [mailto:]
Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 10:42 PM
To: DITA 
  TC
Subject: [dita] DITA 1.2 conformance section


  
  
  I’m the last person to touch the “Conformance” section, so 
  I think I need to try and address the comments on that section from the 
  3rd review.
  
  In looking over the section I see many comments that I am 
  in sympathy with, but which I do not know how to address.  I think the 
  problem is that the DITA TC didn’t do the work needed throughout the entire 
  specification that would allow us to write a clear and unambiguous conformance 
  statement.  And because doing that work would take quite a bit of effort 
  and time that would delay the release of DITA 1.2 by several more months, we 
  aren’t planning to do that work until DITA 1.3 or perhaps DITA 1.2.1.  
  And I think this means reworking the draft conformance section to address the 
  comments that we can, but also leaving many of the comments unaddressed for 
  now.
  
  While the conformance terminology used in the DITA 1.2 
  spec. is far from perfect, I do think that it is much better than what we had 
  in DITA 1.0 and 1.1 where there was essentially no conformance 
  statement.  And we’ve made some progress in terms if using the 
  must/should/may terminology more consistently throughout the spec., although 
  there is much more work that should be done.
  
  I’m looking for guidance from the DITA TC before I start to 
  address specific comments from the review.  Is what I outlined above 
  OK?  Is it OK to leave many of the comments unaddressed for DITA 1.2? 
  Does anyone have other specific suggestions about how to address these 
  issues?
  
  To see the 3rd review comments on the 
  Conformance section, see:
  
    http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/Conformance3 
  
  
     
-Jeff