The Davenport Group (aka Initiative for On-Line Documentation and Publication) Meeting summary for December 18 and 19, 1991 by Dale Dougherty Meeting location: San Antonio Rivercenter Marriott, San Antonio, TX Next Meeting: Week of January 13-17 in San Francisco area. ******************************************************** CONTENTS: ATTENDEES MEETING SUMMARY O'REILLY PRESENTATION SLIDES ******************************************************** *ATTENDEES The following people attended the meeting: Dale Dougherty, O'Reilly & Associates, (dale@ora.com) Blaise Corcoran, Digital, (corcoran@decvax.dec.com) Donna Tramontozzi, Digital (tramontozzi@donata.enet.dec.com) Rich Pusateri, HaL Computer (rtp@hal.com) Mark Hamilton, Frame Technologies (msh@frame.com) H. Garrett Long, UNIX System Labs (att@garrett@usl.com) Ralph Ferris, OSSI (ralph@unisoft.com) Craig Boyle, Texas A&M University (craig@cs.tamu.edu) Charles Rhoades, Altos Computer Systems (crhoades@altos.com) Bob Glushko, Hypertext Engineering (glushko@searchtech.com) David Brennan, Data General (brennan@dg-rtp.dg.com) Mark J. Crowley, Cray Research (mjc@cray.com) Steven R. Newcomb, TechnoTeacher, Inc. (srn@cmr.fsu.edu) Michael G. Belanger, Fulcrum Technologies (mikeb@fultech.com) Elise Yoder, Knowledge Workshop (ht89@zog.cs.edu) Marcia Allen, HaL Computer (ma@hal.com) Sami Webb, HaL Computer Systems (sami@hal.com) Sherry Moe, HaL Computer Systems (moe@hal.com) Carol Adams, IBM Personal Systems (carol@denali.austin.ibm.com) Conleth O'Connell, HaL Computer Systems (cso@hal.com) Brad Might, HaL Computer Systems (jbm@hal.com) * MEETING SUMMARY Our meeting followed the concluding keynote address of the Hypertext '91 Conference. Frank Halasz of Xerox PARC was the keynote speaker and he re-visited his own "seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems," a talk he gave at Hypertext '87. After re-examining the seven technologically-based issues, he added three new ones: 1. Defining the Hypermedia Market(s) 2. Standards 3. Publishing Hypertexts His discussion of these three issues seemed like a perfect introduction to the concerns of those who gathered for the Davenport Group meeting. I began the meeting with a presentation that described what O'Reilly & Associates is willing to do to promote the acceptance of a common interchange format among system vendors and vendors of hypertext browsers. Prior to the meeting, someone said to me that vendors needed more incentive to work toward acceptance a common format. It was suggested that O'Reilly & Associates and other publishers might provide that incentive by beginning to make available materials in that format. So, I came to the meeting to offer O'Reilly & Associates' X Window System Series as an incentive to system vendors to design open, general-purpose information systems. I described our plans to convert our X books to SGML. Volumes 1 and 2 will be available for vendors in the first quarter of '92. We are committed to providing our entire X Series in SGML in 1992. Furthermore, we will make the source to Vol 1 and 2 available at no charge to those vendors who ship our X books. We will make Volume 2 available to other vendors. The X Window System Series will be available for licensing and resale by the end of '92. I discussed the economics of publishing and described how the business model might be different for on-line licensing. It is useful to view on-line publishing as a subscription service rather than a product. The value of the information is derived over time. It reflects that the value is not in the one-time delivery of a printed book but in maintaining and updating the information regularly. I made a similar offer of our materials to software developers who have hypertext browsers. We will provide Volumes 1 and 2 for use on demonstration systems. We will eventually make the entire X series available for licensing to developers who support the common interchange format. The purpose of making these offers is to set up a close collaboration between vendors and publishers to help define, implement and test a common interchange format. The details of the common format do not so much matter as long as there is one. Discussing some of the details led us in a new direction. Steven Newcomb introduced us to the concept of "architectural forms" and proposed it as a means by which multiple SGML DTDs might become interoperable. This proposal came up in a discussion about the proliferation of DTDs and the potentially stifling effect of waiting for a single DTD for technical documentation to emerge. Defining architectural forms in SGML is an idea that saw its first use in the HyTime draft standard. An architectural form is, to quote an unpublished paper of Steve's, "a set of rules for declaring a user-defined SGML element that conforms to the syntax and semantics of some particular named class of objects. In object-oriented terms, it is the meta-class from which a given class of objects (that is, an SGML element type) inherits the syntax and semantics of the meta-class." My understanding of architectural forms is limited. I think I understand it enough to see how it could help identify common semantic elements in different DTDs so that they can be processed equivalently. Steve distributed the following written summary of his proposal: "The essence of my proposal is that the Davenport Group concentrate its efforts on adopting and designing architectural forms for technical documentation, and organize them formally into an advisory paper addressed to whomever. "It may be that the bulk of these architectural forms already exists -- most of the ones needed may already be defined in HyTime. It seems likely, however, that additional abstract mechanisms suitable for standardization will come out of a careful study of the existing databases (documents) of current Davenport participants, and a careful analysis of the mechanisms implied by the semantics of those documents. Even if the question is hypothetical, it will be useful constantly to ask: `What will the Davenport Engine do for us?' i.e., what information should be interoperable, so as to minimize duplication of effort by application developers, while still allowing (indeed, creating) an arena for competition among information vendors, and system vendors." At the end of the meeting, most participants agreed that pursuing the design of architectural forms in subsequent meetings was a worthwhile task. We proposed a four-day meeting to be held in the third week of January in the San Francisco area. Representatives from Digital, HaL, USL, O'Reilly, and OSSI said that they would attend the meeting to come up with an initial draft. We also had brief presentations by Conleth O'Connell on the Integrated Chameleon Architecture (ICA), a suite of tools for building data translators, and by Garrett Long, on the status of the Committee for Common Man. * ORA Presentation Slides *Opening On-Line Documentation Systems to Publishers o Role of Davenport Group o Benefits and Disadvantages of Electronic Delivery o Pricing Printed versus Electronic Delivery o Subscription Model of Delivery o Opening Hypertext Browsers *Role of the Davenport Group o Confluence of Two Trends - System Vendors using standard components in hardware, software and now even documentation - Low Cost Electronic Delivery of Documentation o Two Difficult Problems - Lack of Standards for Interchange - On-line Documentation Systems are not open systems *Benefits and Disadvantages of Third-party Electronic Delivery o System Vendors + Reduce cost of documentation + Develop outside sources (publishers) for documentation + Increase quality of documentation for users - Requires re-designing on-line doc systems - Requires ability to manage and integrate electronic docs. - Involves standards outside of company's control. o Publishers + Open new market for information delivery + Provides re-use or secondary use of existing materials. - Loss of direct book sales. - Extra process of conversion to generalized format for delivery - Copyright issues may not be controllable. - Inability to control form & quality of final product. - Dependence on software to provide user access and manage display. *Pricing Printed versus Electronic Delivery AAP Breakdown of Cost of Printed Books (Professional) 40-55% Distribution via Bookstores, Corporations, Direct Sales. $35 retail technical book sold by publisher from $17-21. Cost of Goods Sold: 30% Manufacturing ($6) 8% Editorial 2.5% Production 16% Sales/Marketing 7% Royalty to author/editor ($2) 5.5% Fulfillment 10% General & Administrative 21% Net (not really $4) *Collaborative Effort to Use Common Format ORA offers incentives: Stage One: - Convert Xlib Vol 1 & 2 to common format. - Provide source for 1 & 2 to put on-line at no charge to those vendors who ship our X books. - Provide Vol 2 source to those who do not ship books. Proposed Dates: April - June of '92. Stage Two: - Convert entire X series to common format. - Prepare for combination of print/on-line delivery, possibly leading to complete on-line delivery - License based on resale of subscriptions. - Offer complete access for cost of partial access in print. Proposed Dates: July - December '92. *On-Line Publication As A Subscription Service o Based on maintaining the value of information over time. o Recognizes need for expansion and updating of info. o Builds continuing relationship. o Keep initial price down and recover costs over time. o Offer user, system and institutional subscriptions. *Key Commitment from Vendors: o Allow publishers to offer services to users, either directly or through system vendor. *Open Hypertext Systems Commitment to: o Fostering multi-use hypertext systems. o Creating digital library of information. o Opening as many vendors/platforms as we can. Proposal: - Provide Xlib Vol 1 & 2 for demonstrations of system capabilities - Work with vendors to port and license entire X series for resale. - Cooperative marketing programs to jointly sell browser/information. - Work with publishers to get information for digital library. Dale Dougherty (707) 829-3762 O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Publishers of Nutshell Handbooks 103A Morris Street, Sebastopol, California 95472 UUCP: uunet!ora!dale Internet : dale@ora.com