2. Introduction

The Open Source Writers Group (OSWG - http://www.oswg.org) uses the DocBook SGML Document Type Definition (DTD) as its standard "source" format for all documentation, including books, articles, papers, FAQs, HOWTOs, mini-HOWTOs, and more.

DocBook was chosen for a number of reasons -- it's a very verbose DTD, it covers almost every possible requirement for technical and other forms of documentation, and it is quickly becoming the standard DTD for open-source and open-content information. There are also a number of open-source tools available for processing DocBook instances, some of which work quite well. Additionally, Norman Walsh's modular DocBook stylesheets are freely available, very complete, and under active development. All of these things make DocBook a compelling choice as a standard SGML DTD.

This document is a quick introduction to using DocBook to markup documentation that is intended to be kept in the Open Source Writers Group Concurrent Versions System (CVS). This CVS is freely available for any writer or group of writers who are working on free open-content documentation of any sort. For more information about the CVS system and the OSWG documentation licensing policies, please visit the OSWG website at http://www.oswg.org.

For a far more complete DocBook reference, visit http://www.docbook.org, the home of the electronic versions of Norman Walsh's DocBook: The Definitive Guide (published by O'Reilly http://www.oreilly.com). Better yet, head on over to your local (real or virtual) bookshop and order a printed version. If you're going to delve into the wonderful world of DocBook, you will definitely get your money's worth out of Norman's book.

If you're new to markup languages, I recommend you read at least the first two chapters of DocBook: The Definitive Guide, as these give an overview of HTML, SGML, and XML, as well as an introduction to the major concepts involved in doing structural and semantic markup.