ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG8 N1349

Title: Meeting Report of SGML SWG, Lugano

Source: C. F. Goldfarb

Project: 1.18.15.1

Project editor: C. F. Goldfarb

Status of document: Approved report

Requested action: For information

Date: 11 Oct 1991

Distribution: WG8 and liaisons

As announced in WG8 N1269, an SGML SWG was held May 23, 24, 27, and 28,
1991 in Lugano, Switzerland. All agenda items were covered.

This document summarizes the discussion at the meeting. The current
document register and action items list are attached as annexes, along
with the attendance list for the meeting.

WG8 N1289 Future development of ISO 8879 was discussed. There was
agreement on the principles of upward compatibility expressed in WG8
N1289 and in the Liaison statement from the SGML Users\' Group (SWG N1),
followed by clarification that JTC1 procedures do not require a New Work
Item for a review project.

The purpose of this meeting was to establish policy and procedures for
reviewing ISO 8879, rather than to initiate that review. The review is
expected to result in future development of ISO 8879, but until it is
completed, it is not clear whether the most appropriate vehicle for
progressing any changes is corrigenda, an amendment, or a revised
edition of the Standard. A revised edition would initially be published
as a CD with a three-month ballot and progress to a DIS with a six-month
ballot. An amendment would first be distributed as a PDAM (proposed
draft amendment) for a three-month ballot and then a DAM (draft
amendment) for a six-month ballot. Corrigenda require only a three-month
ballot. A non-normative summary of any major changes may also be
prepared.

The agreed upon policy and procedures are contained in WG8 N1350, N1351,
and this report. Lynne Price and Dave Peterson agreed to assist the
project editor during the review process by serving as co-editors of the
Journal of Development. They will

\- Maintain a Journal of Development which will record dates when issues
were discussed, decisions made by the working group, and the motivation
for the decisions.

\- Maintain a database of comments that have been received on the
Standard.

\- Record disposition of comments and draft responses to the commenters
when required by JTC1 procedures

\- Edit textual contributions for consistent style

\- Prepare minutes of SWG meetings

Lynne has also agreed to be Contribution Coordinator and will maintain
the following documents:

\- Document register

\- Action item list

\- Attendance list

Any proposed changes to the standard resulting from the review process
will be written for an audience consisting primarily of software
developers, software testers, and members of standards committees. The
presentation will be self-contained so that it will be readable by
people who have not attended SWG meetings and have no other
documentation.

This approach is being taken because prior to 1986, when the SGML
standard was originally published, there was no infrastructure of SGML
expertise. The standard was the primary means for explaining the spirit
and the details of the SGML language to all the following groups:

\- Management of organizations using and producing structured documents

\- DTD designers

\- Users of document instances

\- Members of standards committees

\- Software developers

\- Software testers

Since 1986, knowledge of SGML has spread widely. There is an extensive
technical report on Techniques for Using SGML. Several books and journal
articles about the language have been published. Several organizations
offer classes on SGML. There is a growing corpus of SGML software
available commercially, within certain organizations, and in the public
domain. SGML end users and their managers can now learn about SGML in a
less formal way than by studying the standard.

A document register for the SGML SWG was established. Many of these
documents are not expected to be of interest to a broader audience than
the SWG. Therefore, minutes of SWG meetings, the SWG document register
as it stands after each SWG meeting, and selected other documents will
be sent to WG8. Other documents will be made available upon request.

The database will be designed to provide the following information for
each entry:

1\. An entry number.

2\. The text of the comment, including identification of the submitter.
This information may have the form of

a\) a pointer to a hard-copy document,

b\) a machine-readable document included in full in the database, or

c\) a pointer to a file containing a machine-readable document

3\. Identication of the relevant portion of ISO 8879, consisting of:

a\) Clause, paragraph, and sentence number,

b\) Production number if relevant, and

c\) Page and line in the SGML Handbook

4\. Abstract or summary of comment (head note).

5\. Identification of relevant Journal of Development entries.

6\. Disposition of the comment including

a\) Whether the disposition is the editor\'s recommendation or the final
disposition

b\) Whether the comment is

\- accepted

\- accepted with modification

\- rejected

\- returned to submitter with request for additional information

\- moot (with a citation to the comment and disposition that made it
moot) or

\- duplicate (with a citation to the comment it duplicates)

c\) Whether this disposition is motivated by a technical cause, ISO
policy, or other reason and

d\) Any appropriate discussion or commentary

7\. Identification of related database entries.

8\. Correspondence control.

a\) Whether ISO requires a response

b\) WG8 document number of any response sent and

c\) Person responsible for an undistributed response

11\. The person responsible for proposing any text resulting from the
comment.

12\. Categorization of the comment as proposing

a\) A correction of SGML language, classified as resolution of an

\- ambiguity or

\- inconsistency

b\) New material, classified as a

\- modification of an existing function or

\- new function

c\) An editorial change, classified as whether it

\- has local impact

\- has dispersed impact

\- requires some restructuring of existing text

\- corrects typographical errors

13\. An indication of the size of the proposed change (a rough
classification that may be merely \"big\" or \"little\", or may perhaps
be an integer from 1 to 5).

14\. An effort estimate of the amount of work by the SWG needed to
address the problem, divided into group meeting time and individual
research/writing time.

Items 1) and 3) will be the major keys into the database. Multiple
comments on the same topic will have different entries, as will multiple
comments from a single communication. The practicality of scanning
hard-copy submissions into machine-readable form will be investigated.

Comments that the project editor has already received will be entered
into the database as well additional comments that arrive during the
review process. In particular, the comments in WG8 N1035 will be treated
as accepted comments (subject to the same reconsideration on request
that would be made for any other accepted comments). As some older
comments may no longer be timely or in the spirit of WG8 N1289,
submitters who are still active in the SGML community may wish to revise
and resubmit such material.

The SWG requests that WG8 solicit comments on ISO 8879 from member
bodies and liaisons. SGML SWG N4 contains a draft of this request.

Several attendees presented papers with comments on ISO 8879. These
comments were discussed to the point of understanding the issues raised
without resolving them. All papers were entered into the SWG document
register:

N2. Suggestions for possible extensions to ISO 8879, Martin Bryan, 5/91

N3. Requirements for Standardizing the SGML Parsed Outputs, Y. Komachi
and Y. Tanaka, 5/91

N5. Suggestions for possible extensions to ISO 8879, Pierre Richard,
5/91.

Aidan Killian also reviewed WG8 N1166. In SWG N6, the SWG asks WG8 to
request additional information from the Irish Member Body.

Other standards activity related to SGML was discussed:

Lynne Price requested comments on the draft ANSI standard on SGML
conformance testing.

David Abrahamson discussed requirements for SGML-B as presented in WG8
N1103. It was agreed that the SGML SWG needs to review SGML in parallel
with the development of SGML-B.

Charles Goldfarb presented some issues from the HyTime standard.

DOCUMENT REGISTER

1\. SGML Users\' Group Liaison Statement, 26 April 91.

2\. Suggestions for possible extensions to ISO 8879, Martin Bryan, 5/91

3\. Requirements for Standardizing the SGML Parsed Outputs, Y. Komachi
and Y. Tanaka, 5/91

4\. Draft letter from WG8 to member bodies and liaisons informing them
that SGML review is active, 5/91.

5\. Suggestions for possible extensions to ISO 8879:1986, Pierre
Richard, 5/91.

6\. Draft request to the Irish Member Body for additional information on
WG8 N1166.

7\. WG8 N1103 User requirements for SGML-B (Supersedes WG8 N1012)

8\. WG8 N1289 Future development of ISO 8879

9\. WG8 N1269 SWG on Review of ISO 8879: Meeting notice and agenda - May
1991

ACTION ITEMS

1\. Check that there is a work item covering review of ISO 8879.

Status: Done during SWG 5/91. SGML is an existing project and does not
need a NWI.

2\. Build initial database of comments on ISO 8879 from minutes of SGML
SWG in San Jose (8/79)

Assigned to: Lynne Price, Dave Peterson

Due: Initial effort for WG8 meeting 8/91, if possible. More complete
results for next SGML SWG (early 1992)

3\. Design a DTD for accepting machine-readable comments

Assigned to: Lynne Price, Dave Peterson

Due: Initial effort for WG8 meeting 8/91, if possible. More complete
results for next SGML SWG (early 1992)

4\. Prepare a statement describing the methodology for reviewing ISO
8879 that was decided upon during the 5/91 SWG.

Assigned to: Charles Goldfarb, Lynne Price, Dave Peterson

Due: 10/91

5\. Prepare a description of a language that might be used as a data
content notation for attributes and content.

Assigned to: Martin Bryan

Due: 10/91

6\. Revise WG8 N1166 (except discussion of character sets) in light of
the principles governing future development of ISO 8879 expressed in WG8
N1289.

Assigned to: Aidan Killian

7\. Propose an enhancement of ISO 8879 regarding multi-page character
sets.

Assigned to: Aidan Killian

8\. Prepare a draft proposal for SGML-B.

Assigned to: David Abrahamson

ATTENDANCE LIST

David M. Abrahamson

Department of Computer Science

Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

+353 1 772941 ext 1716

Fax +353 1 772204

DAVID@CS.TCD.IE

Sharon C. Adler

IBM

Publishing Solutions

6330 Spine Rd.

Dept GPA/910-M

Boulder, CO 80301-9191

USA

+1 303 924 0473

Fax +1 303 924 0366

Anders Berglund

ISO

1, Rue de Varembe

CH-1211 Geneve 20

Switzerland

+41 22 749 01 11

Direct +41 22 749 03 33

Fax +41 22 733 34 30

Telex 41 22 05 ISO CH

Martin Bryan

Sema Software Technology

29 Oldbury Orchard

Churchdown, Glos GL3 2PU

UK

+44 452 714029

Fax +44 249 655723

William W. Davis, Jr.

Teleprint Corp.

P.O. Box 22004

Alexandria, VA 22304

USA

+1 703 370 5550

Fax + 1 703 370 5551

Paul A. Ellison

University of Exeter Computer Unit

Lauer Building

North Park Rd.

Exeter, UK EX4 4QE

Phone: +44 392 263951

Fax: +44 392 211630

Ellison@uk.ac.exeter

Charles F. Goldfarb

IBM Almaden Research Center

K83/801

650 Harry Road

San Jose, CA 95120

USA

+1 408 927 2630

Fax 408 927 3040

GML@IBM.COM

Paul Grosso

ArborText, Inc.

349 Daly Ave.

Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6G8

Canada

+1 613 233 2535

Fax +613 562 1083

pbg@arbortext.com

Aiden Killian

Digital Equipment International B.V.

Mervue Industrial Estate

Mervue, Galway, Ireland

+353 (91) 51271 X2545

Fax +353 (91) 53946

killian@galv.a@dec.com

Yushi Komachi

Matsushita Graphic Communication Systems, Inc.

2-3-8 Shimo-meguro, Meguro-ku

Tokyo 153

Japan

+81 3 3491 9191

Fax +81 3 3495 4620

Brent Nordin

ZIFTech Computer System Inc.

120 Herchmer Cr.

Kingston, Ontario K7M 2V9

Canada

+1 613 549 2135

NORDIN@QUCIS.QUEENSU.CA

Dave Peterson

Xyvision Inc

101 Edgewater Dr.

Wakefield, MA 01880

USA

+1 617 224 5249

Fax +1 617 245 2428

Lynne A. Price

Frame Technology Corp.

1010 Rincon Circle

San Jose, CA 95131

USA

+1 408 433 3311

Direct +1 408 428 6116

Fax +1 408 433 1928

lprice@frame.com

Pierre G. Richard

IBM-France

95, rue de la Galera

34090 Montpellier

France

+33 67 61 42 89

Rudolf M. Riess

Digital Equipment Corp.

146 Main Street ML23-2/E51

Maynard, MA 01754

+1 508 493 5998

Fax +1 508 493 3247

Brian Travis

Teleprint Technical Services

102 Inverness Terrace E.

Englewood, CO 80112

USA

+1 303 792 3100

Fax 303 792 3757