DITA TC Meeting Minutes 15 January 2013 (text version)

In lieu of a sluggish Kavi system this morning, I submit this
    record:

    

    

    Minutes, DITA Technical Committee, January 15 2013

    Scribe: Don Day

    Chaired by Kris Eberlein

    Speakers during today's call: 

        KE: Kris Eberlein

        RA: Robert Anderson

        DD: Don Day

        JH: JoAnn Hackos

        SD: Stan Doherty

    

    Status of Tech Comm SC: (JoAnn)

        Had first meeting, Bob Thomas working on Stage 3 proposals with
    current template. 

        Seth's team still on Release Management proposal. MP helping on
    the Steps domain for troubleshooting.

        MP asked about XML domain proposals. Kris has put this item on
    the agenda for today under stage 2. 

        MP wanted feedback on whether TC SC would want that proposal to
    be part of one of their packages. Will discuss shortly.

    

    Business:

    

    No stage 1

    

    Stage 2

    13114 Adding @rev to <title> elements.

        JoAnn reviewed the user requests that motivated the need.
    Nothing new to add.

        Eliot added that his publishing users likely have the same
    requirement as well.

        Because title is required, it has no select-atts, so there is no
    reason @rev should not be allowed.

        RA: Likely an oversight due to original grouping of attributes.

        KE: Will queue this for a vote next week

    

    13035 XML Mention:

        KE: is TechComm SC agreeable to add this item to their package
    (Eliot would still do all the drafting).

        KE: asked JoAnn to take an action to ask the SC about the
    request.

        Eliot reviewed the basics of the proposal for JoAnn.

    

    Stage 3: 

        None for discussion

        For vote:

        Proposal 13078: adding @rotate to entry and @orient to table 

        JH: y

        RA: y

        MP: y

        AW: y

        MB: y

        SD: y

        DHe: y

        DD: y

        KE: y 

        DB: y

        CN: y

        DHa: y

        EK: y

        TB: y

        Approved by acclamation of present voting members

    

    

    New items: Difficulties mentioned on dita-users list with product
    names and reuse

        KE: reviewed the discussion on dita-users, referenced her note
    to the tc list

            *
    https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201301/msg00010.html

        RA: reminded us of nesting keywords discussion, impact on domain
    specializations (element cloning in unintended places)

        DD: reviewed tension between schemas that mimic the programming
    model vs need to document parts of content within that markup.

        EK: keyword is pcdata or text or tm; are there any other
    elements that reuse keyword, and currently not (Robert's concern).

        RA: Robert would not change the keyword model

        EK: Wintitle does not allow tm, but could. Seems like an
    oversight

        RA: UIcontrol was motivated by output processing concerns (TM
    text should not appear in a UI)

        KE: Can already be abused; perhaps the question is whether
    wintitle could be specialized from ph instead of keyword.

        EK: Could break other's current work. Would have been ideal.

        KE: has been suggesting that others specialize their own
    wintitle from ph if needed.

            What people want to do is define their productname in an
    element. Adding tm to wintitle is a different issue.

        SD: Has a practice of using a glossary with ph, text, keyword to
    try to get all terms into one place for reuse--

            agrees with the general reuse problem.

        EK: there is a proposal to allow text where not currently
    allowed, might resolve part of the issue, but does not resolve

            reusable structures with semantic content (ie, product names
    with particular renditions)

        JH: Noted Troy K's response, intent to keep markup controls out
    of the source.

        KE: Notes that the management process is not available to
    smaller groups.

        MP: conref, conkeyref are all variable controls in DITA; Troy's
    approach is setting atts on the variable attribute 

            to identify its usage in speech to aid translators. 

        DD asked about glossary and part of speech, JH and MP both agree
    it is not sufficient as is.

        MP no mechanism in glossary for indicating same term in variant
    usage contexts.

        MP would explore the idea, though. Might be beyond 1.3.

        EK: Thinking of a general mechanism with glossary entry with
    forms of the term with a unique label for grammatic distinctions. 

            Would use something like keyword to access the applicable
    part. Keyword with keyref would open up use of special phrases. 

            System processing can be problematic.

        MP: Of all the ways to do it, let's start wiht the translation
    SC and capture it as a post1.3 requirement.

        KE: Appreciates MP bringing up case and other options. Would
    writer be responsible for indicating case? 

            Is that okay for non-primary-English writers?

        MP: Writer just writes it; during translation, turn the variable
    file into an indexed lookup table that is actually 

            managed by translators (those who have the linguistic domain
    knowledge).

        JH: affirmed that grad students can't generally diagram a
    sentence--it is a widespread concern.

        KE: outputclass is not available on text element--should this be
    considered?

        RA: explicit decision to keep it as just a pure text variable,
    with semantics added by other wrappers.

        KE: Another argument for not allowing tm in text.

        EK: Doesn't like tm, but RA countered with real IBM use cases 
    in support of legal business rules about rendering usage.

        RA: When contracts change, an external rules file takes care of
    changes in rendering rules.

        EK: trademark in text should be okay

        DD: recalled IBM's use of eServer's special e font--businesses
    CAN have a reason for supporting presentation in trademarks.

        KE: Not much of anything we can do for DITA 1.3

        EK: perhaps we can allow text wherever tm is allowed?

        RA: tm is in the basic group used everywhere it is explicitly
    allowed.

        EK: publishing needs more generality; that is an invalid reason
    in general.

        SD: If writers and archs are running into limitations--are there
    sensible practices to document? He'be willing to contribute.

        KE: Would be happy to work with Stan on that document.

            Appreciated the useful conversation, looking forward to what
    we might do with glossary.

        EK: be nice if tm were a specialization of text, but that's not
    possible.

        KE: Thanks all for the time, adjourned the call.

    

    

    
-- 

      
      
        
Don R. Day

        
ContelligenceGroup.com

        
Co-Chair, OASIS
            DITA Technical Committee

        
LinkedIn: donrday   Twitter:
          @donrday

        
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          don.r.day

      
      
        
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

        
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

        
--T.S. Eliot