DocBook is certainly an obstacle to generation of OpenACS related
docs, articles, etc. (Yes, we have skilled volunteers willing to
manually merge non-DocBook content into the DocBook sources, which is
excellent, but that's still not and can't be the same as being able to
yank the sources from CVS and fix things yourself.)
How big an obstacle I can't really say, as I've never tried
using it. Maybe big, maybe small. But I think I've only ever met
one programmer who, by choice, preferred to write in DocBook
XML.
Part of that is probably path dependent. (E.g., I also know
programmers who use and like LaTex but never HTML; but is that because
LaTex is better/easier or just because they already know it and don't
care to bother with HTML?)
But still, that sounds like a somewhat telling piecee of
circumstantial evidence against DocBook to me.
I'd say that for doc formats and tools, priority should be, in order
with top priorities first:
- Lower barriers to entry, encourage as much contributed content
as possible.
- Higher quality of docs (e.g., auto-generated Table of Contents),
better and easier maintenance of docs.
- Better and easier conversion to multiple output formats. (AFAIK
to date this has never been a real priority for any real user of
OpenACS, and isn't likely to become one either.)
