Members Approve Darwin Information Typing Architec

Members Approve Darwin Information Typing Architec

URL : http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-08-13.php

Avaya, Adobe, BMC Software, Boeing, Citrix Systems, Comet, Comtech Services, IBM, Intel, JustSystems, Nokia, Oracle, PTC, Sun Microsystems, US Department of Defense, and Others Collaborate on Open Standard for Content Reuse and Multi-Channel Delivery

 

Boston, MA, USA; 13 August 2007 — OASIS, the international open standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved DITA version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. DITA builds content reuse into the authoring process, defining an XML architecture for designing, writing, managing, and publishing many kinds of information in print and on the Web.

 

"More organizations are turning to DITA as a way to jump start their use and reuse of structured content—and reduce costs in the process. The enhancements we've made in version 1.1 are a direct result of input from a user community that is experiencing tremendous growth," noted Don Day of IBM, chair of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee.

 

DITA supports single sourcing across books, help files, training, and multimedia. It enables modular, topic-based authoring through rich, semantic markup. It incorporates special features for localization, accessibility, and robust conditional processing.

 

Version 1.1 of DITA provides enhanced print publishing capabilities with new DITA Bookmap specialization, including extended book metadata. The standard offers more indexing capabilities with new elements for "see" and "see-also" references. It features new elements for defining structured metadata as well as the ability to add new metadata attributes through specialization.

 

"It's exciting to see the semiconductor, learning, and machine industry sectors organize sub-committees at OASIS to advance DITA specializations," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "We expect other industries to also begin standardizing their own DITA subject-matter vocabularies."

 

Comtech Services, IBM, JustSystems, and PTC verified successful usage of DITA 1.1, in accordance with eligibility requirements for all OASIS Standards. DITA was developed under the Royalty-Free on Limited Terms Mode of the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights Policy.

 

Participation in the OASIS DITA Technical Committee remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, governments, academic institutions, and individuals. Archives of the work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS offers a mechanism for public comment. OASIS hosts DITA XML.org, the official community gathering place and information resource for the standard.

 

Support for DITA 1.1

 

Avaya
"Avaya is pleased to see the release of DITA 1.1 because it indicates the continued evolution of this important standard. DITA's support for the development of structured, reusable content is key to our goal of providing accessible, consistent, relevant information to our users. We look forward to its expanded adoption in the community," said Christine Troianello, Director of Information Solutions at Avaya.

 

Comet
"Comet welcomes the promising trend towards DITA. Since 2003, we have been using DITA to successfully implement my proven class concept in both industry projects and in an academic setting. The experience we have gained through a variety of DITA projects proves that a productive documentation environment for DITA can be set up in just a few months. Not only is DITA easy to implement, authors can be effectively trained in the topic-based principle, which leads to better documentation in terms of its simplicity, consistency, and reusability," said Professor Sissi Closs, Comet.

 

Comtech
"Comtech Services applauds the positive commitment that the OASIS community has made to the DITA 1.1 specification. The Technical Committee members have worked hard to add robust new features to the DITA standard, further enabling its adoption by organizations worldwide. At Comtech, we continue to support DITA adoption by assisting organizations to understand the architecture, apply it to their own information models, and deliver the appropriate content to their users," said JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD, President, Comtech Services, Inc.

 

IBM
"DITA provides the common denominator for an enterprise-wide content strategy, acting as an integration point for Web 2.0 collaboration and enterprise processes. IBM's use of DITA has expanded from hardware and software documentation to marketing, training, and design documents. The DITA 1.1 standard supports IBM's expanding usage and creates new opportunities for infrastructure integration and content collaboration," said Bernice Casey, IBM Corporation Distinguished Engineer, Corporate Strategist for Information User Experience.

 

JustSystems
"The release of DITA 1.1 reflects the success of DITA as the standard for creating, publishing, and delivering XML-based documentation. We continue to support DITA in our software, as the standard continues to make strong headway in technical documentation and other areas of content publishing," said Bruce Sharpe, President, Vancouver Technology Center, JustSystems.

 

Additional information:
OASIS DITA Technical Committee
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita/

DITA XML.org
http://dita.xml.org/

Cover Pages Technology Report
http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html

 

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), drives the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for the global information society. A not-for-profit consortium, OASIS advances standards for SOA, security, Web services, documents, e-commerce, government and law, localisation, supply chains, XML processing, and other areas of need identified by its members. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. http://www.oasis-open.org

 

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