INFORMATION ABOUT SGML SIGHYPER (THE HYTIME INTEREST GROUP) THE SGML [1] USERS' GROUP SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP ON HYPERTEXT AND MULTIMEDIA (SGML SIGHYPER) is different from all other groups whose focus is hypertext and multimedia theory, technology, and creativity. The sole interest of SGML SIGhyper is the promulgation of information about the ISO/IEC "HyTime" Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language (ISO/IEC International Standard 10744 [2]), as a worldwide standard technical framework for integrated open hypermedia, and in the applications of HyTime, including the ISO/IEC "SMDL" Standard Music Description Language (ISO/IEC Committee Draft 10743). We hope that the publishing, documentation, entertainment, education, and information processing industries will evaluate HyTime as an appropriate standard toward which they all can migrate in an orderly and profitable fashion. The intent is not to inhibit competition; quite the contrary, it is to help to create a new arena for competition, and to help to train and equip the players. Now that HyTime has become an officail international standard, we expect that SIGhyper will serve as both a matchmaker and an information warehouse for customers and vendors in the hyper/multimedia market. SGML SIGhyper has been created to provide a way for those who want a flexible and open technical framework for hypermedia publishing to contribute to the process of creating that framework. Your membership in SGML SIGhyper will connect you as directly as possible with the ISO [3] process, so that your requirements for integrated open hypermedia can be known publicly and met in the course of a public process, and so that you will be informed about per- tinent developments regarding technologies relevant to the creation, mainte- nance, and processing of hypermedia documents represented in SGML. SGML SIGhyper's parent organization is the international SGML Users' Group, [4] which is privileged to send limited delegations to ISO meetings where SGML- based standards such as HyTime are developed. Members of SGML SIGhyper: * receive the "SGML SIGhyper Newsletter," which keeps them abreast of current technical information about the emerging applications of HyTime and other developments. * know who is working in the field, and how to get in touch with them. Members receive the "SGML SIGhyper Directory," which lists all SGML SIGhyper members who elect to be listed in it. * are able to inform other members about matters of general interest, through written contributions to the "SGML SIGhyper Newsletter," and by direct mail to the members. * are aware of the availability of exemplary new HyTime documents, document type definitions, system designs, and software, when they first become available. * are represented at ISO HyTime meetings. CURRENT MEMBERS OF SGML SIGHYPER are employed by and/or represent the following organizations: Aarhus University, American Chemical Society, Ameri- can National Standards Institute, Apple Computer, Inc., Aquidneck Data - 2 - Company, ArborText, Inc., Asea Brown Boveri AB, Atlantic Research Corporation, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Audre, Inc., Australian Taxation Office, Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Bellcore, Blind 'Dillo Records, Booz-Allen, B.S.J. Technologies, Inc., Bull HN Information Systems Italia S.p.A., California State University at Long Beach, Canon Inc., CITRI, Clemson University, Commission of the European Communities, CRA, Concord Research Associates, Inc., Database Publishing Systems Ltd., Datalogics, Incorporated, DATAMONT S.p.A. (Gruppo Ferruzzi), Digital Equipment Corpora- tion, Dimensional Media Systems, Dow Jones & Company, Inc., Eastman Kodak Com- pany, EJV Partners, L.P., Electronic Book Technologies, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Fabritius A/S, Florida State University, Fujitsu International Engineering Limited, Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, G. D. Searle & Company, General Electric Corporate Research & Development, Glaxo Canada, Incorporated, GRAME, Graphic Communications Association, Graphire Corporation, Group for the Advancement of Fundamental Research in Music, Grumman Melbourne Systems, HaL Computer Systems, Inc., Hatfield Polytechnic, Heinz Heise Verlag GmbH & Co KG, Hewlett Packard, Hewlett-Packard, Hyperview Systems, Inc., IBM Corporation, IBM-France, Industrial Technology Institute, InfoDesign Corpora- tion, Inform II -- Microfor, Information Navigation, Institute of Control Sci- ence, Intel Corporation, Intergraphics Associates, Interleaf U.K., Ltd., International Computer Music Association, KAIST, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Kwangwoon University, L. Taylor, Consultant, Linkoping University, Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc., Logicon Eagle Technology, Los Angeles County & USC Medical Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technol- ogy, McGraw-Hill, Inc., Mead Data Central, Media Learning Systems, Inc., Memex Information Systems Ltd., Meta-Connections, Microstar Software Ltd., MID/Information Logistics Group GmbH, MITRE Corporation, Moody's Investors Service, MusicArt, Mutual of America, Naggum Software, National Computer Board, National Institute of Standards & Technology, NCR Corporation, Nomura Research Institute, Ltd., NTERGAID, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Office Com- puting Group, Open Software Foundation, Optical Publishing Association, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., OWL International, Inc., Paramax Systems Group, PIRA International, Pratt & Whitney, Ricoh Corporation, Rohm and Haas Company, Ron Gorow Music, Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Samsom Uitgeverij, Schlumberger Laboratory for Computer Science, Sema Software Technology, SGML Forum, Siemens Gammasonics, Inc., Silicon Graphics, Inc., SoftQuad, Inc., Software Systems, Solutions By Design, Inc., Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronic Publishing Company, Spencer W. Allen Computer Consulting Services, Springer-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, State University of New York at Binghamton, Stockholm Institute of Education, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Technical Arts Group, Technical Methods, Inc., TechnoTeacher, Inc., Teix, Sistemas de Informacion Estrategica, S. A. de C. V., Teleprint Corporation, Telub Inforum A. B., Teradata Corporation, Tetrasys, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc., The Fulcrum Consulting Group, The HyperMedia Group, The Turing Insti- tute, TNO-Building Research, Union Bank of Switzerland, University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of California at Berkeley, Univer- sity of California, San Diego, University of Delaware, University of Exeter, University of Florida, University of Illinois, University of Kent, University of Massachusetts--Lowell, University of Surrey, Unix System Laboratories, Inc., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Washington University School of Medicine, Waynesburg College, Wolters Kluwer Academic Publishers, and Xanadu Operating Company. MEMBERSHIP IN THE SGML USERS' GROUP. It is not required that you join the SGML Users' Group, but it's probably a good idea. The benefits of membership in the SGML Users' Group include reduced rates at events organized by the users' group, a copy of each issue of the "Bulletin" and "Newsletter," copies of the standards and technical reports at special prices, discounts on certain relevant books, and a 10% discount for the Markup conferences. To join the - 3 - SGML Users' Group, you should send your name, affiliation, position in your institution or company, mailing address, telephone and/or facsimile numbers, telex and/or internet and/or other electronic mailing address(es), a signed letter of intent to join, and your annual membership dues of either US $75 or Lb 40 for an individual, or US $150 or Lb 80 for a corporation, to SGML Users' Group, Stephen G. Downie, Secretary, c/o Softquad Inc., 56 Aberfoyle Cres., Suite 810, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M8X 2W4 (voice: +1 416 239 4801; fax: +1 416 239 7105). THE GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION (GCA). SGML SIGhyper recognizes the crucial role that the GCA has played and continues to play in the development of the HyTime standard. As ANSI X3V1.8M Secretariat, the GCA provides essen- tial sponsorship for meetings and mailings in support of that committee's work. We plan to continue to support HyTime technical sessions at GCA- sponsored conferences, such as "TechDoc," "SGML," "Expert Communication," etc. In addition, due to the rising popularity and use of HyTime, the GCA is now planning a series of conferences devoted solely to HyTime. For the foresee- able future, SGML SIGhyper meetings will take place during GCA-sponsored conferences (the organizational meeting took place at TechDoc '91, in Seattle, Washington, USA in August, 1991). For information, contact Mr. Marion L. Elledge, Vice President, Information Technologies, Graphic Communications Association, 100 Daingerfield Road, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA (voice: +1 703 519 8160; Telex: 510-600-0899; fax: +1 703 548 2867). ISO AND ANSI HYTIME MEETINGS. The SGML Users' Group sends delegations to these meetings. For more information, contact Steven R. Newcomb, Chairman, SGML SIGhyper, c/o TechnoTeacher, Inc., 1810 High Road, Tallahassee, FL 32303-4408 USA (voice: +1 904 422 3574; fax: +1 904 386 2562; Internet: srn@techno.com) SGML SIGHYPER ON LINE. Thanks to the efforts of Erik Naggum (the Vice Chairman of SGML SIGhyper) and the University of Oslo, some SGML SIGhyper documents and general information are already available via anonymous FTP from ftp.ifi.uio.no ([129.240.88.1]) in the directory "SIGhyper." All new documents are announced in the USENET group comp.text.sgml as they become available. If (and only if) FTP service can't be used, members may request the document via the internet from SIGhyper-request@ifi.uio.no. An alternative source node for SGML SIGhyper on-line documents is at Florida State University; the address is mailer.cc.fsu.edu (128.186.6.103); the directory is pub/sgml. At both FTP nodes, there is also a public-domain SGML parser in the form of both C source code (for either Unix or MS-DOS) and MS-DOS executables. Known as "ARC SGML," the parser comes with absolutely no warranties of any kind whatsoever. SGML SIGhyper will send (with absolutely no warranties, guaran- tees, or anything else, for that matter) copies of ARC SGML in the following formats for the following prices to the following addresses. (You may be able to get lower prices by buying directly from the SGML Users' Group.) U.S. addresses non-U.S. addresses IBM (MS-DOS) 3.5" HD US $ 27.75 US $ 30.00 IBM (MS-DOS) 5.25" HD US $ 34.21 US $ 38.00 UNIX TAR, 1/4" cartridge US $ 59.90 US $ 72.00 Copies of ISO 10744 (HyTime) are currently only available from your country's ISO member body. Copies of CD 10743 (SMDL) are available from SGML SIGhyper, as well as from the GCA, and your country's ISO member body. The HyTime and SMDL standards documents are NOT available in electronic form. If you wish to order this document from SGML SIGhyper, the prices are as follows: - 4 - ISO Standards base N. America non-N. America price postage air postage FL tax CD 10743 (SMDL) 11.96 1.44 5.50 0.84 Non-members of SGML SIGhyper should double the base prices indicated above. Orders may accompany membership applications. Please make your check in U.S. funds payable to "SGML SIGhyper," and mail it to: Chris W. Higgins, Treasurer, SGML SIGhyper, c/o TechnoTeacher, Inc., 1810 High Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32303-4408 USA. (Voice: +1 904 422 3574. Fax: +1 904 386 2562. Internet: chris@techno.com) Note: You will need the HyTime document in order to understand the SMDL docu- ment. Please be informed that the SMDL document has not been revised to reflect the changes in the HyTime IS, so there is some inconsistency between the two documents. FOOTNOTES 1. SGML stands for ``Standard Generalized Markup Language," an international standard (ISO 8879-1986) metalanguage for the expression of the structure of document types and for tagging the structural elements of document instances conforming to any particular document type. SGML has been adopted by many of the world's largest publishers and by many countries, including the US and the EC. 2. HyTime became an ISO International Standard in April, 1992. 3. "ISO stands for "International Organisation for Standardization," an organization whose members are the national standards-making bodies of the participating countries. 4. The SGML Users' Group is an international group entirely devoted to the promotion and exchange of information about the ISO SGML standard (Stan- dard Generalized Markup Language; ISO 8879-1986). - 5 - Application for Membership in SGML SIGhyper (91/09/24) _______________________________________ _______________________________________ signature city _______________________________________ _______________________________________ name (surname last) city zone _______________________________________ _______________________________________ title state, province, etc. _______________________________________ _______________________________________ sub-department postal code _______________________________________ _______________________________________ department country _______________________________________ _______________________________________ company or institution work telephone _______________________________________ _______________________________________ mailstop home telephone _______________________________________ _______________________________________ street, p.o. box, suite, etc. -- line 1 facsimile machine _______________________________________ _______________________________________ street, p.o. box, suite, etc. -- line 2 Internet, Bitnet, etc. address _______________________________________ _______________________________________ street, p.o. box, suite, etc. -- line 3 Internet, Bitnet, etc. address _______________________________________ _______________________________________ street, p.o. box, suite, etc. -- line 4 other electronic address Please mark with an X whichever of the above items you DO NOT wish to have printed in the SGML SIGhyper Directory. Please feel free to attach any self-describing information you wish to have printed in the SGML SIGhyper Directory. Organizations may use up to six lines at no extra charge; individuals may use up to three lines. In case the infor- mation does not fit within the space allocated for your type of membership, please also indicate whether you wish us to edit it, or print it verbatim and bill you for any extra lines. (Advertising space in the Directory is also - 6 - available by the page.) A membership year begins on August 1 and ends on July 31. Membership dues are payable annually, and they should be received before August 1. If your dues are received after September 1, you may miss some mailings, and you may not be listed in the SGML SIGhyper Directory. All members receive the SGML SIGhyper Directory annually. All current members of record receive all SGML SIGhyper Newsletter issues at their time of original publication. Back issues are available to members at extra charge. Written contributions to the Newsletter are welcome any time. SGML SIGhyper reserves the right to refuse or edit all written contributions. Organizations may list up to two persons in addition to the organization's own listing. Each of the two persons will receive all mailings, and there may be up to three listings in the Directory altogether: one for each of the two per- sons, and one for the organization itself. Therefore, organizations may wish to submit three of these forms with each membership. Type of membership Annual Dues for North Dues for Addressees Outside American Addressees North America Organization US $ 150.00 US $ 170.00 Individual US $ 75.00 US $ 95.00 Please make your check in U.S. funds payable to "SGML SIGhyper," and mail it with your application to: Chris W. Higgins, Treasurer, SGML SIGhyper, c/o TechnoTeacher, Inc., 1810 High Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32303-4408 USA. (Voice: +1 904 422 3574. Fax: +1 904 386 2562. Internet: chris@techno.com). ******************************************************************************** Dear SGML SIGhyper Member, I am writing this letter to explain the reasons for the long delay we are experiencing in publishing the second issue of the _SGML SIGhyper Newsletter_, and to try to keep you informed while that (large) issue is unavailable. You can think of this letter as an interim newsletter. When you joined SGML SIGhyper, you were betting on HyTime's early appearance as an international standard. I'm very pleased to report that you bet wisely. HyTime was adopted by the ISO and IEC as a full-fledged International Standard on May 1, 1992. HyTime has the distinction of being the _only_ international standard for representing the structure of hypertext and multimedia documents. It is reasonable to expect the pace of HyTime activities, and the frequency of publication of this _Newsletter_, to pick up considerably from now on. Unfortunately, there were a number of changes required by the editing instructions given to the Project Editor, Dr. Charles F. Goldfarb, by WG8 when HyTime was adopted, and the final editing of the standard is, at this writing, not yet complete. We had expected an early completion and publishing date, and were therefore delaying publication of the next _Newsletter_ until such time as we could make a complete report about the changes to HyTime, and provide updated and new examples of the use of the IS version of HyTime. It is now clear that it will be another month before the standard is published, and we felt that we now had to send this letter out to inform our members about the reason for the delay. Since the wait has been so long, it now looks as though the current Membership Year will expire (on July 31) before the new Newsletter will appear. Therefore, for purposes of _Newsletter_ subscriptions, THE CURRENT MEMBERSHIP YEAR WILL NOT EXPIRE UNTIL AFTER THE NEXT ISSUE, WITH THE HYTIME EXAMPLES AND EVERYTHING ELSE WE ARE NOW HOLDING, IS MAILED OUT. In other words, you will not have to pay any additional dues in order to receive the next full issue. (Far be it from us, however, to discourage you from renewing your membership! We will send out membership renewal notices after we mail the next issue.) Since last October's issue was first published, there has been a steady increase in the number of questions and expressions of support and interest about HyTime. SGML SIGhyper now has about 200 members, and we expect many more very soon, when the International Standard version of HyTime is published by ISO and distributed by all of its national member bodies. Several of you have reported bugs in the example documents in the first issue of the _Newsletter_, and several have provided a variety of other materials for publication in the _Newsletter_; we are grateful for these contributions of effort and interest. AVAILABILITY OF THE HYTIME INTERNATIONAL STANDARD DOCUMENT. We have asked permission to duplicate HyTime, so that our members can continue to enjoy ``one-stop shopping'' for all their HyTime documentation needs, but we have not yet received a reply to that request. If we do receive such authority, it seems certain that each copy we make will involve a royalty expense, which we will have to pass on to you along with our usual duplicating, handling, and mailing charges. The ISO quite literally owns the text of its standards, and that is a good thing, because its ownership protects the integrity of the standards. ELECTRONIC COPIES OF THE HYTIME INTERNATIONAL STANDARD DOCUMENT. On a related topic, many of you have asked for electronic copies of the HyTime standard. For a variety of good reasons, the electronic version is not available. Unless the ISO changes its policy on this point (and there is currently a firm ISO-imposed embargo on electronic publishing of standards), you can be certain that any electronic versions of recently-released ISO standards you may come across are unauthorized and not to be trusted. On your behalf, we have argued that it will be embarrassing to hypertext applications vendors who claim that their products are HyTime-compliant, if they cannot supply the HyTime standard itself as a hypertext document with their systems. At the same time, we have also made what we see as an even stronger argument that it would be a bad idea to publish HyTime or any other standard in the absence of any mechanism whereby users can independently determine that * the copy of the standard supplied by a vendor is an ISO-authorized, royalty-generating copy, * that the vendor has not contaminated that copy with other text that perhaps makes the vendor's product's features appear to be demanded by the standard, and * that the vendor has not altered the text of the standard (or obscured any part of the standard by failing to link to it), so as to make the vendor's product inaccurately appear to conform to the standard. The last thing we need is a variety of different versions of the HyTime standard lying around, and no way to determine whose version is correct. This would be very undesirable for a variety of reasons, including the fact that references may be made to HyTime in binding contracts, national regulations, and in other international standards. As a formally adopted International Standard, HyTime is subject to change only by means of an amendment process, and at regular reviews at five-year intervals in the normal ISO fashion. Having said all that, I should also point out that the ISO will place the HyTime meta-DTD, which is arguably the very heart of the standard, in the public domain. We expect SIGhyper, among others, to make it publicly available via FTP, e-mail, floppy disk, and tape. PREVIEW OF CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARD VERSION OF HYTIME. There are a variety of editorial changes: * Most of the informative Annexes are gone, in order to make it easier to finalize the actual standard. (The ``Lost Annexes'' will be published in a forthcoming issue of the _SGML SIGhyper Newsletter_.) These include a description of the behavior of a possible implementation of a HyTime engine, some examples representing alignment relationships, a description of editorial conventions used in ISO standards, a tutorial on SGML, and a description of Integrated Open Hypermedia. * There is an expanded explanation of categories of HyTime attributes. * The DIS's ``hub document'' concept has been put into the context of the concept of the ``bounded object set.'' * The distinction between HyTime and non-HyTime elements has been made clearer with the addition of a ``HyTime/non-HyTime Bridge element'' ("HyBrid"). * A significant new SGML/HyTime query language, ``HyQuery,'' has been added. GENERAL IMPLEMENTATIONS OF HYTIME. Two companies have separately and publicly announced their intentions to produce HyTime engines, which are software modules intended to be used as substrates or back ends for complete end-user applications. (The HyTime standard was written in such a way as to make it practical to produce such engines, and thus to obviate the need for each implementer of HyTime to ``reinvent the [HyTime] wheel.'') * TechnoTeacher, Inc. has announced that its ``HyMinder'' product will be in beta test this summer, and that a general release is planned for the fourth quarter of this year. The announcement was made, and a prototype was demonstrated, at TechDoc Winter '92 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in February. * Mr. Martin Bryan (author of the well known _SGML: An Author's Guide_) of Sema Software Technology (the source of the MARK-IT SGML parser/document analyser and the WRITE-IT SGML-based structured document editor) has announced his company's intention to produce a HyTime engine product fully integrated with his company's product line around 1995. He made the announcement in the course of his presentation on a hypermedia system for the support of the European tourist industry now under development at Sema, at the International Markup '92 conference in Amsterdam in May. (Note: We have not yet heard of any actual HyTime-compliant end-user product announcements. When you hear of any, please let us know so we can announce them.) THE ``DAVENPORT GROUP'' is a group of Unix and Open system vendors who are developing a HyTime-based meta-DTD for the interchange of online software documentation. The group has met three times, and the current draft of the resulting _Davenport Advisory Standard for Hypermedia (DASH)_ [the DASH was formerly known as the _Davenport Group Draft Advisory Standard (DGDAS)_] will be published in the next _SGML SIGhyper Newsletter._ The basic idea is to provide a standard for interchangeable ``navigation information'' about documents, so that, for example, any reseller of a documentation product can incorporate references to parts of documents in a master topical index to all the documents sold with a system, emanating from a variety of sources. Active participants in the work include representatives of Avalanche, Computervision, Electronic Book Technologies, HaL, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lotus, Novell, O'Reilly & Associates, Open Software Foundation, Open Systems Solutions, TechnoTeacher, and Unix System Laboratories (the foregoing is not a complete list). If you would like to become a participant in the DASH design work, you should contact the Chairman, Mr. Dale Dougherty, Manager, Digital Media Group, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 103A Morris Street, Sebastopol, California 95472 USA. (tel: +1 707 829 3762; fax: +1 707 829 0104; uucp: uunet!ora!dale; internet: dale@ora.com). The most recently published draft of the DASH is also available as a PostScript file via FTP from mailer.cc.fsu.edu (128.186.6.103) in the directory ``pub/sgml/DAVENPORT.'' With this letter, I have attempted to give you a feeling for some of the kinds of things that are going on with HyTime. There is much more to tell, and we will do our very best to get the next _Newsletter_ into your hands, with the detailed information you need, as soon as possible. In the meantime, please share your news, questions, and comments with us, so we can share them with you. Sincerely, Steven R. Newcomb, Chairman, SGML SIGhyper (International SGML Users' Group Special Interest Group on Hypertext and Multimedia) c/o TechnoTeacher, Inc. Voice: +1 904 422 3574 1810 High Road Fax: +1 904 386 2562 Tallahassee, FL 32303-4408 USA Internet: srn@techno.com NOTE NEW INTERNET ADDRESS: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^