DocBookTools confusion

[Brendan Simon <bsimon at ctam dot com dot au>]

Mark Galassi wrote:

> Dear Brendan,
>
> Unfortunately the DocBook tools packages are limited, in that they are
> meant as a stop-gap solution (which has lasted two and a half years)
> for people who have RPM and want to get going with DocBook.

I understand why you have collected all the tools in one spot.  The whole
DocBook thing seems so messy to get up and going.  From what I
understand, the DocBook is just a DTD which an SGML parser uses to
convert to another markup format (yes ?).

So all I need is a tool that converts SGML to whatever.  Then I need
another tool such as TeX/LaTeX to do the real work.  I'm ok with getting
TeX/LaTeX but the SGML tools are hard to get.  sgml-tools is not
currently maintained and the latest version does not compile out of the
box.  I hacked around and got it compile most of the way but gave up in
the end.

I came across Jade and wondered what the hell it was all about.  There is
heaps of talk about DSSSL which I don't know anything about.  Is it the
same thing as a DTD or what ?  There is also something called OpenJade
which I assume is a replacement for Jade (or an opensource equivalent).
I notice that DocBookTools uses Jade.  Why ?

James Clark's (author of Jade) site also has a package called SP which is
an SGML parser.  This seems to be exactly what I need.  Is Jade a
superset of SP ?  Does Jade use SP ?  Gees I'm confused :(  Would I be
better off using SP, Jade or OpenJade ?  If I use Jade do I also need
JadeTex ?

I'm hoping that this can be cleaned up and clarified someday.  I think
the DocBookTools project is the place for this.  I think an up to date
collection of tools (sources and rpms) with a simple README, FAQ, HOWTO
and/or INSTALL files would be all that is required.

I hope some one can enlighten me a little.
Brendan Simon.