Normative refs to 8879/10744?

At the moment, the first sentence of the abstract of the XML spec reads:

 Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an extremely simple dialect of SGML 
 which is completely described in this document.

The first paragraph of the section 1.0, Introduction, reads:

 Extensible Markup Language, abbreviated XML, describes a class of data 
 objects called XML documents which are stored on computers, and partially 
 describes the behavior of programs which process these objects. XML is an 
 application profile or restricted form of SGML, the Standard Generalized 
 Markup Language [ISO 8879].

It seems that we mostly agree that the the rest of the spec succeeds
pretty well in making these sentences true.  However, it is important
(at least to me) that we avoid any perception (however idiotic) that
we are working against SGML, and I at least become deeply irritated
when I read demands for our resignation based on such imputations.

Len, could you suggest a redraft of the two sentences above, or 
another set of modifications of the text of the spec, that would meet 
your goal of making the 8879 reference normative?

Speaking only for myself, it seems that making the reference more
normative would be uncontroversially good, if this could be done without
giving the impression that anyone actually has to *read* 8879 or 10744
to do XML safely, correctly, and legally.  -T.

Received on Sunday, 23 February 1997 18:09:33 UTC