From xemacs-m  Thu Nov 28 17:35:32 1996
Received: from nz11.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (nz11.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de [129.13.64.7]) by xemacs.cs.uiuc.edu (8.8.3/8.8.3) with ESMTP id RAA19150 for <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>; Thu, 28 Nov 1996 17:35:29 -0600 (CST)
Received: from ipd.info.uni-karlsruhe.de (actually i44ms.info.uni-karlsruhe.de) by nz11.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de with SMTP (PP); Thu, 28 Nov 1996 23:06:15 +0100
Received: from sl-kb05.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (root@pool2.ilk.de [194.121.104.131]) by ipd.info.uni-karlsruhe.de (8.6.4/8.6.4) with ESMTP id XAA14965; Thu, 28 Nov 1996 23:06:06 +0100
Received: (from drepper@localhost) by sl-kb05.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (8.8.2/8.7.5/ud-960406) id WAA13345; Thu, 28 Nov 1996 22:37:15 +0100
To: Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM>
Cc: =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCPGkyLBsoQiAbJEJDTkknGyhC?= / MORIOKA Tomohiko  <morioka@jaist.ac.jp>,
        tm-en@chamonix.jaist.ac.jp, XEmacs Beta Test <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>,
        pinard@iro.umontreal.ca
Subject: Re: Tm + XEmacs + GNU documentation
References: <199611210207.SAA06202@xemacs.eng.sun.com> 	<199611271907.EAA26781@mikan.jaist.ac.jp> <199611272310.PAA00600@xemacs.eng.sun.com>
Reply-To: drepper@ipd.info.uni-karlsruhe.de (Ulrich Drepper)
X-fingerprint: BE 3B 21 04 BC 77 AC F0  61 92 E4 CB AC DD B9 5A
Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.94)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
From: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@myware.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
Date: 28 Nov 1996 22:37:12 +0100
In-Reply-To: Martin Buchholz's message of Wed, 27 Nov 1996 15:10:19 -0800
Message-ID: <x7zq019a0n.fsf@myware.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
Lines: 39
X-Mailer: Red Gnus v0.69/XEmacs 19.14

Martin Buchholz <mrb@Eng.Sun.COM> writes:

> MT>   By the way, I'm rewriting new documents by SGML, and I defined sinfo
> MT> DTD (DTD designed to convert Texinfo).  I think SGML may be better
> MT> than Texinfo, because sgmls is not designed only for English.  Of
> MT> course, there are problems to convert DVI.  But there are several
> MT> implementations about localized or multilingual TeX, so to write
> MT> several translator may solve it.  Of course it is important to write
> MT> translator for HTML.
> 
> It's hard to change the documentation strategy for GNU Software
> without having agreement from Richard Stallman and those folks working
> with him on Internationalization issues (Francois Pinard, Ulrich
> Drepper, and Lars Ingebrigsten).  I believe they would favor extending
> the GNU documenation tools and TeX to support non-English text,
> instead of adopting a completely new document format.

In fact I'm also planning for some time now to switch the
documentation to use SGML.  If we can generate good readable texinfo
code it should be not such a big problem to convince RMS that using
SGML isn't bad.  I don't say he will switch but he probably won't
disagree in others using this new definition.

For the DTD: you wrote on yourself?  Based on the layout of texinfo?
I really think a really usable DTD should be based on the Docbook DTD
by the Davenport group.  I have in mind some more extensions but using
this standard DTD has the big advantage that it does not only allow
texts to be written in the fixed form suitable for texinfo.

> MT>   By the way, do you think to write Emacs documents by SGML?
> 
> I'm still learning Texinfo!

Better stop and try SGML :-).

-- Uli
--------------.       drepper@cygnus.com  ,-.   Rubensstrasse 5
Ulrich Drepper \    ,--------------------'   \  76149 Karlsruhe/Germany
Cygnus Support  `--'  drepper@gnu.ai.mit.edu  `------------------------

