Re: [Bug-gnupedia] just HTML??

[Tom Chance]

Sorry you've totally misinterpreted that point. The
frontend would be HTML. Users could submit articles in
almost any format so long as we or they can convert it
with a perl script. I have been saying this for a long
time now, and Rob Scott and I have thoroughly
documented the point, plus others, here:
http://www.state-embers.co.uk/alexandria/index.htm

Tom Chance
 
--- David Tanzer <address@hidden> wrote: > Tom
Chance wrote:
> 
> > I've been talking to RMS who agrees that it would
> be best to
> > keep it simple with HTML (not XML or other text
> > display technologies), not only because it will
> work
> > with any browser (even lynx!) but also because it
> will
> > be easy to change into other formats should we
> wish
> > to. Especially easy if we display with HTML
> > (compatible) and save data with a database, not a
> > large number of files.
> 
> This is is just an argument for using HTML for the
> presentation
> format.  But it would be incredibly shortsighted to
> require that articles 
> can only be submitted in HTML.  All that should be
> required for a 
> submission format X is that there be a standardized
> way of converting X 
> to HTML.
> 
> For example, it would very desirable to accept
> submissions in
> Latex.  The latex source is much more intelligible
> than the HTML 
> formatting commands into which it gets converted. 
> By posting
> that source as part of the encyclopedia, the
> reusability and
> modifiability of the document is greatly enhanced. 
> 
> Since XML is essentially HTML with some arbitrary
> restrictions
> removed--whereas HTML has a fixed set of tags, XML
> allows the author the freedom to use whatever tags
> are most
> descriptive--it is more natural and flexible for
> human _writers_.  
> The tagging allows that writers to add descriptive
> metadata,
> and this makes the information reusable for new,
> unanticipated
> applications in the future.  I.e., it lays the
> foundation for
> the subsequent _querying_ of the encyclopedia. 
> 
> So with XML open to the writers (which includes HTML
> as
> a subset), and HTML needed for the browsers, all
> that is needed
> is a conversion script.  If authors choose to use
> their own
> XML schema, we could ask that they send in the
> script that 
> converts it to HTML.  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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