Current wording
4.3.1. Format
Where the manifest is contained in a file, the Open Know-How Manifest uses the YAML v1.2 format [2].
Permalink
https://standards.internetofproduction.org/pub/okh#format
Proposal
Switch from using YAML to using JSON. Do not allow YAML any longer.
Motivation
YAML was picked for ease of writing by individuals but in practice most manifests are generated and not written by hand. Writing YAML by hand is error prone and has caused a number of parsing issues in practice.
JSON is parse-able with the standard library of most major programming languages and is less error prone to write and generate.
Some may suggest that we could support both YAML and JSON but this defeats the purpose of standardisation and puts the burden of supporting both file formats on software developers with no perceivable gains.
Risks
We may lose some early adopters because they have to convert their manifests. We can mitigate this risk by providing a conversion tool.