Re: Linking to stylesheets in XML

> Lets not think that many legal systems recognise that what we 
> from SGML-land think of as a document (something that can somehow be
> representation-independent) is what they consider a document.
> Quite the contrary.
> 
> I heard a talk a couple of years ago from a Taiwanese professor,
> who said that in Confucian-law contries (CJK), *only* the sealed 
> physical paper version of the document was considered the
> document: not a fax, not a photocopy, and certainly not an
> abstracted version. So to be useful, SGML documents needed to
> carry around enough formatting information to allow them to
> be printed sealed (stamped), and after that they needed to 
> have information to nominate the actual document.
> 
> Presumably this will all change at some stage with reliable electronic
> signatures. I don't know enough to know whether this is something
> that XML should concern itself with, though.
> 
> Rick Jelliffe
> 

I'm not saying that we should support every kind of print-oriented construct
in XML stylesheets.  My customers don't expect this and the legal and
compliance industries do not expect this either.  They realize that in
electronic delivery things are going to have to change.  Unfortunately, they
are still bound by laws that are directed towards print concepts (like
last page bottom margins for recording spaces).

What I want is the ability to work within these laws in XML a deliver an
acceptable solution.  ...and there are many *big* organizations who would
be very happy.

Essentially, we need to support a "happy medium" between print and
on-line that will allow developers to deliver legal compliance documents.

==============================================================================
R. Alexander Milowski     http://www.copsol.com/   alex@copsol.com
Copernican Solutions Incorporated                  (612) 379 - 3608

Received on Thursday, 24 April 1997 10:17:35 UTC