Metadata and Interoperability

Jim Earley has a very thoughtful post on metadata interoperability: http://jims-thoughtspot.blogspot.com/2008/04/metadata-interoperability.html

As part of DocBook v5, we added the ability to include content from other namespaces in the <info> block to support adding Dublin Core directly in your content. The <info> element's purpose is to house metadata that is not intended for display, so it's a really good fit.

Jim's argument, is that the various standards out there (DocBook, DITA, ODF at a minimum) should move to Dublin Core for metadata, and stop re-inventing the wheel. Dublin Core is an internationally accepted standard for metadata, so why not use it directly?!

I whole-heartedly agree. This approach would add more compatibility between standards, and maybe even facilitate better search! Along with that, Dublin Core is extensible, so it shouldn't be too difficult to add additional metadata fields if you need to.

Doc Standards Interoperability Framework whitepaper now available!

Jim Earley and I have presented about the Doc Standards Interoperability Framework at XML 2006, DITA West 2007, Open Publish 2007, OASIS Symposium 2007 and DITA West 2007.

The whitepaper is now available at:
http://www.flatironssolutions.com/downloads/Interoperability_Framework.pdf.
This whitepaper contains greater detail on the business case for interoperability, as well as specifics on the framework. If you are interested in exchanging content between DocBook, DITA, ODF and/or other document standards, you should definitely check it out!

We are still working on the charter for the proposed OASIS Doc Standards Interoperability TC. Hopefully we can get that finished soon to form the TC before year-end.

Does Interoperability Really Matter?

My colleague, Jim Earley, and think so! Come to DITA West 2007 and find out why.

Jim and I will be presenting on a Doc Standards Interoperability Framework for DITA, DocBook, ODF and more! Our innovative approach provides mappings between the more prevalent documentation standards without inventing a new XML grammar.

Learn about the similarities between many of the documentation standards, how to map content between them, and how to process content with maximum fidelity using this framework!

We will also be presenting this framework at Open Publish and the OASIS Symposium.

Hope to see you there!