I think Paul's e-mail brings up especially valid concerns for vendors.
Nevertheless, in terms of response, I am admittedly concerned about a chilling effect that vendors could potentially have on early adoption efforts for upcoming specializations such as Learning and Training.
If we cannot provide sample outputs from any implementation, especially from the Open Toolkit, without concerns of bias, we cannot refer to any outputs whatsoever. If this is the case, we cannot demonstrate any practical outputs from DITA, which is essential in early adoption within the marketplace.
In terms of workload and maintenance, it is not possible for a small individual workgroup or committee to reasonably cover examples of every possible implementation, now and in the future, including the implementation at work in someone's basement today. :-)
In terms of providing practical guidance to evaluators, vendors, and users interested in a nascent specialization, especially in a specialization that would have little formal vendor support in early adoption, I would question excluding everything because we cannot possibly include everything.
I have always thought that the purpose of the Open Toolkit was to provide a reference implementation, both for users and vendors alike at the early stages of adoption. We need to know what the thing is supposed to look like when making evaluations. This would hold true for vendors or content development organizations. I think of the Open Toolkit as a tool for both.
Perhaps the way to proceed for specialization groups is to:
1. Establish an actual or ad hoc representative of the Open Toolkit to provide practical guidance in using the Open Toolkit to support a particular specialization, such as Learning and Training, Help, or whatever.
2. At the same time, invite participating vendors to provide the same kind of parallel guidance for workgroups within OASIS.
3. Provide a general, public announcement outside of OASIS. If other vendors want to provide guidance, they can, either inside or outside of OASIS, now or in the future (obviously, they should be encouraged to join OASIS if they want to contribute now).
4. Mount all of the examples of practical guidance somewhere common.
No one could be accused of excluding anyone, but adoption efforts could proceed and be of practical, demonstrative use to early adopters and vendors alike.
Just some ideas.
Troy Klukewich
Information Architect
Oracle