Words on a page

Single sourcing is one of the Holy Grails of technical writing -- the ability to have one source of information, and to be able to tailor and output it to many different formats and audiences. But, according to this article, single sourcing might be passe. Instead, multi-sourcing could be the next big thing.

From the article:

[E]ach content providers works on their content in its native format, but stores the content in the repository as XML. This of course, requires that each application have the ability to fully round-trip the XML files. The technical writer, like the other providers, is able to use (or link to) other content directly, by using the the XML file. No more copying/pasting!

It sounds like an interesting concept, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea for, as the article states, everyone to become content provider. I'm assuming the author means everyone in an organization. Bad idea -- not everyone will adhere to the templates and styles mandated by the technical publications department.

And as for the contention that "The technical writer changes from 'publisher' to 'content provider'" ... well, providing content is what a technical does. The publishing part is only ancillary to the task of writing.