DocBook v5.1 is now an official OASIS Standard!

OASIS is pleased to announce that DocBook Version 5.1. has been approved by the membership as an OASIS Standard [1].

The call to vote was made on 09 November 2016 [2] and the ballot closed on 22 November 2016. A minimum of 42 affirmative votes was needed in order to win approval. The finally vote tally was 63 affirmative votes with 4 abstentions. 

Our congratulations to the members of the TC and to the community of implementers, developers and users who have brought the work successfully to this milestone

DocBook is a general purpose [XML] schema particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications).

The Version 5.1 release introduces assemblies for topic-oriented authoring. It also addresses a selection of bugs and feature requests.

The Technical Committee provides the DocBook 5.1 schema in other schema languages, including W3C XML Schema and an XML DTD, but the RELAX NG Schema is the normative schema.

URIs:

The prose specifications and related files are available here:

DocBook Version 5.1

HTML (Authoritative): 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/docbook-v5.1-os.html 

PDF: 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/docbook-v5.1-os.pdf

Editable source:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/docbook-v5.1-os.xml

Schemas: 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/schemas/

DocBook V4.x conversion tools: 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/tools/

Distribution ZIP files

For your convenience, OASIS provides a complete package of the prose specification and related files in a ZIP distribution file. You can download the ZIP file here:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/os/docbook-v5.1-os.zip

Voting opens for DocBook v5.1 as an OASIS Standard

The ballot to approve DocBook v5.1 as an OASIS standard is now open, starting at 09 November 2016 at 00:00 UTC. The ballot closes at 22 November 2016 at 11:59 UTC. 

This is a call to the primary or alternate representatives of OASIS Organizational Members to vote. 

If your company is a member of OASIS, please encourage your representative to vote in favor of this standard at: https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ballot.php?id=3010 

The Version 5.1 release introduces assemblies for topic-oriented authoring. It also addresses a selection of bugs and feature requests.

To view the specification, please see:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/cos01/docbook-v5.1-cos01.html

DocBook Version 5.1 now in Public Review

The OASIS DocBook TC [1] members have recently approved a Committee Specification Draft (CSD) and submitted it for 30-day public review:

DocBook Version 5.1

Committee Specification Draft 01 / Public Review Draft 01

11 Feb 2015

Overview:

DocBook is a general purpose [XML] schema particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications). 

The Version 5.1 release introduces assemblies for topic-oriented authoring. It also addresses a selection of bugs and feature requests. 

The Technical Committee provides the DocBook 5.1 schema in other schema languages, including W3C XML Schema and an XML DTD, but the RELAX NG Schema is the normative schema. 

TC Description: 

The DocBook Technical Committee maintains the DocBook family of schemas. 

Public Review Period:

The public review starts 23 March 2015 at 00:00 UTC and ends 21 April 2015 at 23:59 UTC. 

This is an open invitation to comment. OASIS solicits feedback from potential users, developers and others, whether OASIS members or not, for the sake of improving the interoperability and quality of its technical work.

Reviewers may provide comments directly from the comment-tag version of document. The file

docbook-v5.1-csprd01-COMMENT-TAGS.html

contains the HTML version of the draft with a “[comment?]” link next to each section heading. Clicking on this link will launch your email application and begin a message to docbook-comment@lists.oasis-open.org with the specific section number and title in the subject line. Simply enter your comment and click send.

Note that you must be subscribed to the comment mailing list before sending feedback. Instructions on how to subscribe can be found at https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=docbook.

URIs:

The prose specification document and related files are available here:

HTML (Authoritative):

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/docbook-v5.1-csprd01.html

HTML with inline tags for direct commenting:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/docbook-v5.1-csprd01-COMMENT-TAGS.html

Editable source: 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/docbook-v5.1-csprd01.xml

PDF: 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/docbook-v5.1-csprd01.pdf

RELAX NG Schemas: 

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/schemas/rng/

Schematron Schemas:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/schemas/sch/

XML Catalog:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/schemas/catalog.xml

NVDL Schema:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/schemas/docbook.nvdl

DocBook V4.x conversion tools:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/tools/

ZIP distribution file (complete):

For your convenience, OASIS provides a complete package of the prose document and related files in a ZIP distribution file. You can download the ZIP file here:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/docbook/docbook/v5.1/csprd01/docbook-v5.1-csprd01.zip

Additional information about the specification and the OASIS DocBook TC can be found at the TC's public home page:

https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/docbook/

Comments may be submitted to the TC by any person through the use of the OASIS TC Comment Facility which can be used by following the instructions on the TC's "Send A Comment" page, or directly at:

https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=docbook

Comments submitted by TC non-members for this work and for other work of this TC are publicly archived and can be viewed at:

https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-comment/

All comments submitted to OASIS are subject to the OASIS Feedback License, which ensures that the feedback you provide carries the same obligations at least as the obligations of the TC members. In connection with this public review of "DocBook V5.1", we call your attention to the OASIS IPR Policy [2] applicable especially [3] to the work of this technical committee. All members of the TC should be familiar with this document, which may create obligations regarding the disclosure and availability of a member's patent, copyright, trademark and license rights that read on an approved OASIS specification. 

OASIS invites any persons who know of any such claims to disclose these if they may be essential to the implementation of the above specification, so that notice of them may be posted to the notice page for this TC's work.

========== Additional references:

[1] OASIS DocBook TC

https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/docbook/

[2] http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php

[3] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees//ipr.php

https://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/ipr#s10.2.3

RF on Limited Terms 

DocBook vs. DITA: revisited

The Content Wrangler has published a very interesting article by Dick Hamilton on choosing an XML schema.

I get asked very similar questions all the time! I think I'll start sending folks to this article as recommended reading...

DocBook v5.0 now an official Committee Draft!

I was on the road last week and didn't have a chance to post the GREAT news!

At the DocBook TC meeting on November 7, 2007, DocBook V5.0 was approved as a Committee Draft! This draft was a result of several years of hard design work, especially by Norm Walsh, who created 9 Beta Releases and 7 Candidate Releases since October of 2005.

The most exciting feature, IMO, that this standard is based on RelaxNG rather than DTD. DTD and XSD are still supported/provided, but the canonical format is now RelaxNG (RNC). Vendors, start your engines and add support for RelaxNG validation! Actually, several vendors are already "ahead of the game" with RelaxNG support: oXygen XML Editor, XML Mind XXE, Editix, Emacs nXML, Cladonia Exchanger XML Editor. Conspicuously missing: PTC Arbortext Editor and XMetal. [NUDGE: C'mon big guys!]

The other exciting result of DocBook v5 and RelaxNG, is that it makes customization layers EXTREMELY easy to manage. The DocBook Subcommittee for Publishers proposed a new modularization of the RNC schemas for DocBook v5 to create Core DocBook and additional schema modules, which have now been incorporated into the v5 source. As a result, we've also been able to produce an initial draft of an official DocBook Publishers customization very easily!

This is great news for the entire DocBook TC and community!

DITA 1.1 Officially Released!

It's been a lot of work, but we've finally released version 1.1 of DITA! I've been involved heavily in DITA 1.1, as well as the Learning Content specialization subcommittee.

The full press release is available here:
http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-08-13.php

Key features of this release include:

• Enhanced print publishing capabilities with the new DITA Bookmap specialization, including extended book metadata.
• New elements (<index-see>, <index-see-also>, and <index-sort-as>) for "see" and "see-also" references.
• New elements (<abstract>, <data>) for defining structured metadata, as well as the ability to add new metadata attributes through specialization.
• New elements for image scaling.
• The glossary specialization, adding new elements for glossary entries.
• Support for foreign content vocabularies (<unknown> element)

UPDATE: The DITA OpenToolkit 1.4 has also been released, including support for DITA 1.1. For more information, please see:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=724798