% report-9105-tub.tex				21 Jun 91
%------------------------------------------------------------

%
% Report on the DVI Driver Standard
%
% [Plain]


\input tugboat.sty

\def\DVI{{\tt DVI}}
\def\GF{{\tt GF}}

\title * Report on the \DVI{} Driver Standard *
\author * Joachim Schrod\\
    Secretary\\
    TUG \DVI{} Driver Standards Committee *
\netaddress [\network{Bitnet}] * xitijsch@ddathd21 *

\pagexref{schrod}

\article

The \DVI{} Driver Standard will be available in several stages. The
basic stage is now called level~0. It covers only those driver
capabilities which are really necessary to output a \DVI{} document
on an output device. All other driver capabilities will be called
features (and may even be realized outside a driver). In the future
we will publish several additional standard documents which will cover
ranges of features; those documents will represent ``tiers'' built upon
level~0 or on previous tiers. In this way they will be available as
future stages of a complete standard. (One may doubt whether the standard
will ever be complete as there may be always new features to
standardize.)

The basic stage, level~0, consists of three parts:
\list
\item[\tag{(1)}] The pure standard document telling what a driver must
    be able to do.
\item[\tag{(2)}] Definitions of all file formats spoken of in part~1.
\item[\tag{(3)}] A rationale describing why the committee has chosen
    the given definition in part~1, recalling discussions that led to
    particular decisions.
\endlist
%
A draft of the level~0 document is about to be published for public review.
Part~1 of the draft is (almost) ready; a few spelling errors and such
have to be removed. Part~2 was ready, but D.\,E.~Knuth has changed
the \GF{} documentation, and this change must be incorporated.
Part~3 exists only in part.

The committee will publish the draft as soon as possible. It may be
that the draft of the rationale will not be finished in time; in that
event we will publish part~1 by itself. This is considered to be useful
(although not desirable) so that we will get responses very soon\Dash
and especially to change the status from ``draft'' to ``released'' as
soon as possible.  The file formats will not be published in \TUB; they
are available on several file servers. For people who do not have access
to file servers I've prepared a brochure covering all file formats.

When complete, the standard will be published in the {\sl \TeX{}niques\/}
series.  The style will be modified slightly to follow formal standards
conventions.  The body of the standard will form the main text; this
will be followed by a number of ``annexes''.  The file formats will come
immediately after the main text, as ``normative'' annexes; that is, these
format specifications are an integral part of the standard, but the
presentation of each is self-contained and too large to be appropriate
in the main text.  Finally, the rationale will appear as an
``informative'' annex, to present information that is not an integral
part of the standard, but is intended to help a user in understanding it.

\head * Future work *

What tier will come next, i.e., what driver feature will be looked at
next, is still unclear. There is public pressure to tackle the area of
graphics inclusion at an early date; others want to touch areas such as
page selection, etc., first. So this remains an open problem. We
%invite all parties to feed work into the committee. My personal
invite all parties to bring proposals to the committee. My personal
opinion is that a proposal for a new tier received early will be
handled early. So if someone is eager to see a specific topic
addressed, he or she should do work on this topic and send us the
result of the work. (We will be glad to acknowledge contributors.)

\signature{\signaturemark
	Joachim Schrod\\
	Technical University of Darmstadt\\
	Institut f\"ur Theoretische Informatik\\
	Alexanderstra\ss{}e 10\\
	W-6100 Darmstadt\\
	Federal Republic of Germany\\
	\thenetaddress1}
\makesignature

\endarticle



\bye