Sent: Wed 23/11/2005 11:07 AM
To: Henning Schulzrinne; Eliot Lear
Cc: Dave Aronson (re IETF); ietf@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Henning's proposal (Re: ASCII art)
--On onsdag, november 23, 2005 09:58:23 -0500 Henning
Schulzrinne
<hgs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Let me try a
concrete proposal:
>
> - All document editors MUST submit XML format
to the RFC editor. (Mostly)
> semantic markup makes a lot more sense than
presentation mark-up as it
> makes it possible to translate the format
into a variety of output
> formats. This format is the long-term archival
format, as it seems highly
> unlikely that the world will suddenly forget
how to interpret XML in any
> timeframe we care about. The schema/DTD is
documented in ASCII, so if an
> alien invaders take over the (IETF) world,
they can bootstrap, as long as
> they can figure out English.
this
is possible to say. I don't know if it's acceptable.... for instance,
XML2RFC
versions invoke boilerplate, they don't contain it; are there legal
dragons
here, or is the naming of a publicly-identified DTD/schema enough
of an
invocation of legalisms?
> - Authors can use Word (or other formats),
but must use a Word style that
> makes automatic translation to the 2629
XML possible. I don't know enough
> about Word internals to know if Word
styles are sufficient to make this
> possible today, but with a bit of
semantic mark-up (e.g., surround the
> abstract with tags), this shouldn't
be too hard.
has anyone proved by demonstration that this is
possible?
It doesn't have to be part of the rules...
> - The XML
version is made available to the public and is the
> authoritative
version, in addition to the traditional ASCII version. The
> XML version
can then be used to generate more readable and printable
> versions using
XSLT or other tools. I suspect generating a PDF version
> wouldn't be
hard, either. These presentation formats can then evolve as
> people care
to write tools.
You can't have two authoritative
versions..........
> - The XML format also allows the use of UTF-8,
for use in examples, not
> as normative text. The translation to ASCII can
automatically insert U+
> or other appropriate elements.
How would
the translation know when U+ is appropriate...?
>
> - SVG or a
subset thereof is authorized for illustrative (non-normative)
> diagrams.
The XML schema already supports the ability to link alternative
>
renditions of graphics, so this requires minimal effort.
I suspect that
there are dragons here too.... but I've never tried to do
anything with SVG,
so I don't know the tools for it....
> I think this would actually put
us ahead of standards organizations that
> use presentation-oriented
document formats that are hard to transform
> into alternative renditions
now or in the future. None of the above
> requires a major change in
process, rules or procedures. The only 'tools'
> effort would be to create
a suitable DOC template. Given that converting
> existing late-stage
drafts may be onerous, this can be phased in over
> time.
Just
nibbling at the details.... the big question is whether this will be
felt as
help or hindrance to the people who do the real
work...
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