April 28, 2009 
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating “information-typed” modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web.
At the heart of DITA, representing the generic building block of a topic-oriented information architecture, is an XML document type definition (DTD) called “the topic DTD.” The extensible architecture, however, is the defining part of this design for technical information; the topic DTD, or any schema based on it, is just an instantiation of the design principles of the architecture.
(Link: DITA – Darwin Information Typing Architecture)
