See also: IRC log
<trackbot> Date: 09 March 2015
"We have a special guest, Yves. Peter K will need to leave early for another taskforce.""We need to approve last weeks minutes. Comments/?s/Suggestions..."
"Great - minutes are approved"
"One of the TF updates - Peter. Can you provide a state of affairs? Comments?"
Peter: "With the STEM taskforce, the 2nd and
3rd round of questionnaires happened last week. Sent to everyone
identified..."
... " gone out to roughly 90 people, should be enough. Return rate isn't
shiny (15?) but I will keep annoying people. Has a deadline of End of
Month. At the same time, we'll work on actual responses."
<tzviya> survey:
<tzviya> https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/64149/DPUB-STEM-2014-12/.
Peter: "Unless people can magically make people answer the survey, suggestions welcome."
<tzviya> CHORUS forwarded survey to whole mailing list
Peter: "There are a few more outstanding as
people said they aren't going to answer, but will forward to others in
their organization"
... "Survey is set to close end of the month."
... "Original batch went out about a month ago. The 3rd sendout was last
week."
<tzviya> http://w3ctag.github.io/packaging-on-the-web/
Marcus: "Moving on to discussion of packaging - web packaging to be exact. We have Yves here - invited by Ivan - the primary thing we want to discuss isn't the exact specification, but the primary purpose is to understand where the spec is at, within the web-apps working group - and what the future is. And how the Pub group can get involved."
Ivan: "Plus anything that Yves may want to discuss with us. Maybe - Yves - it would be good to explain your role."
Yves: "I'm mostly working on updating the
document and doing face-to-face meetings to get the document ready. The
packaging format started as a way of identifying - with the URL - a way
to identify packaging. It then derailed to some use-case as to why there
was a need for a package format or document. One of the main driver was
the need for ?JSP? libraries."
...: "Using service workers... It is kind of a portable cache format.
Without the need of a configuration."
... "we wanted to actually know if the work we've done will be actually
useful to our people. We started to gather input from other people, and
we got some security input, signatures - part of the document from
inside the package - and of course it would be good for us as we know
this IG would be interested in this type of packaging."
... "If out approach was good for you, what would we need to make
better... The current point is trying to figure out who would be the
perfect customer of the specification."
Markus: "So is it safe to say you have no use cases from DPUB?"
Yves: "No use-cases from DPUB."
<tzviya> multi-part MIME from digital publishing: https://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/File:OEBFF_draft.pdf
Markus: "Currently many DPUB are using epub,
which is based on ZIP. EPUB considered multi-part MIME, the old
(original) spec is still available, if you'd like to look at it. Was
created by/for digital publishing. Was watered down later. Certainly
historical proof that multi-part MIME has validity for publishing."
... "One question - is it not too late for use cases at this point, or
is there a possibility of large changes?"
Yves: "Certainly not too late. Some browser vendors are interested, but waiting for things to stabalize before they implement. Perfectly OK to request things now. Now is a good time. Also, when considering multi-part MIME, there was an issue with servers needing to sending out delimiter - there was an issue for one of the use-cases with stringing. -- being able to process stringable without
requiring all the documents in the first place. Don't want to know in advance what the perfect delimiter is in advanced."
Brady: "Re: generating use-cases. My problem
is we have an existing solution - literally millions of epubs, publisher
tool-chains, pipelines, huge collection of tools/workflows. From my
perspective, it feels like we should be understanding why we should even
consider this. If it doesn't have significant benefit over existing
solution, not sure why it would be considered."
... "Existing solution may have flaws, but need to better understand the
new package first."
Ivan: "Are the discussions that lead to using the ZIP format -- archives -- might be of interest to see the arguments against multi-part MIME. Some of the arguments may be interesting to the working group."
Brady: "We used to have an archive, may not be official. We might be able to dig it up. Personally, I think ZIP was not the best decision, and multi-part MIME was the right decision. I would support multi-part MIME today. Problem is, we already have a solution, and have invested heavily in it, and not sure it makes sense to throw away all that work."
Ivan: "If the decision of the derivative already taken, or can the package be revisited? Especially if the use-cases for epub/ebooks exists"
Yves: "Zip is an issue when you take streamability into account. The fact that DPUB gets another format as well as this one is not an issue. Publishers would have to make a decisions as to what format they would want to use. Is what we have good enough as a starting point. If you are using something else that has breadcrumbs that people know well... "
Ivan: "The reason why we are looking at it in the first place, we - in the long term - epub and documents on the web - will be much closer than they are today. Browsers would implement the packaging format that the web-application working group is proposing. I doubt browsers are willing to implement both of them."
Markus: "Native browsers support for streamability is why we're looking at it.."
Brady: "Not sure ZIP isn't streamable. If you allow for deletions/changes..."
Yves: "Not 100% sure the arguments about ZIP
and streamable. I'll bring it back up with the discussions."
... "There is a need to have a catalog of what's inside..."
<Yves> https://github.com/w3ctag/packaging-on-the-web/issues/14
Brady: "Catalog only necessary if there are insertions/deletions. You should be able to reconstruct (stream the ZIP based on local header. Could be some other reason, but it seems that ZIP is streamable if you impose restrictions. Arbitrary ZIP, no. Additional requirements, yes."
Markus: "Would be good to have a definitive answer about the streamability of ZIP."
Ivan: "It's the interest group's job to
determine if the ZIP format can be used for streamability and the needs
of the package group."
...: "When you talk about use cases - Yves - it would be good to know
how deeply you go. A number of very high-level use cases exist in a
white-paper, but they are probably too high-level."
Yves: "When the use-case is there, it lets us know of the issues around consuming the package. If there are items that are missing from existing applications, based on the choices made for the format, we need to know. Security use cases, means we have a need to decide/define on those protocols. Basically - what is missing at the technical level. It's mostly your group that can say 'there is
something missing there'""
Ivan: "You want us to add issues to the GitHub?"
Yves: "GitHub or e-mail to the packaging mailing list are both acceptable"
<david_stroup> apologies, I need to drop...
dauwhe: "Epub can be a pain - especially because the MIMETYPE cannot be compressed, and people need to google it, etc..."
<tzviya> +1
Brady: "If you look at the packaging spec,
there are 3 reasons - it's streamable, tools for ZIP suck, and
metadata."
... "If you think it's hard to make a zip, imagine how hard it is to
make some new package that doesn't have tools. But, I can put a bunch of
headers in."
... "Looking at the discussion was 'sure, you can stream a zip, but look
at all this metadata'"
<ivan> +1 dauwhe
Dauwhe: "If we can figure out a way to do things in a specific way, ZIP would do what we need."
<HeatherF> https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/arcmedia/charter/
Heather: "This is a small aside - IETF is
working on a top-level media-type for archiving. They are looking at the
W3C's work on packaging. It is work just started. Charter is linked in
IRC."
... "Input on the work is welcomed."
Yves: "The fact that there is a need for a ZIP with a mimetype has been a need for many years. Lots of mess on the web because of that. The fact that we are creating an archive is good input for them as well."
Tzviya: "Great workflow in place for epubs,
but as epub becomes more complicated and other publications are
searching for a good format, some publishers are looking for a good - or
better - way to publish online. This new package format would be good
for those publisher and they may be interested in this new format."
... "Concern is also how readers are going to handle this specific
format. Phones right now don't well handle a ZIP file or an EPUB."
Ivan: "How does the next 6-12 months look?"
Yves: "No fixed plan yet, so we'll have to
do some review/discussion. Pretty sure that in the next 6 months, not
much will get done with respect to decisions that will render the spec
final."
... "Probably have some new discussions in mid-april. Slow progress of
the specification."
Ivan: "Are there plans to extend the specification with an API specification as well?"
Yves: "Not currently, but it is something that might be done. There might be some interaction with a service worker, as a way to deal with caching. But currenlty that is the only specification that we got in terms of using an API. No API to manipulate directly the package or contents of the package. If there is a use-case/need, then why not?"
Ivan: "1) Streamability of ZIP - definitive answer. 2) Produce use-cases for packaging and feed those to the group."
<clapierre> I found this Patent from
Google on Streamable zip filed last year, http://www.google.com/patents/WO2014113715A1?cl=en
...: "If we get the volunteers to do this work, doesn't mean that
publishers shouldn't use ZIP. Just researching having multi-part MIME as
an option for the future. Distinction between doing the work and
deciding that it will actually be used."
<mgylling> Thank you Yves!
Ivan: "One practical comment: Yves, Until decisions are made, is it OK if you come to this call regularly to keep us up-to-date?"
Yves: "I can talk to you and keep you updated that you can keep them updated, and I'll join if something to say."
Charles: "I sent off an e-mail this morning to a few people - summary of the accessibility taskforce accomplishments. Looking at WPEG? techniques. ARIA techniques and SMIL are all relevant. Silverlight NOT relevant. General: A dozen or so not required. And a dozen we weren't sure of. About 1/2 dozen HTML techniques we weren't sure of, as with CSS. Only one PDF technique that wasn't
relevant."
Charles: "We haven't finished the common
failures or client-side scripting techniques."
...: "We'll get feedback from Tzviya and others to see if we need to
bring concerns to the rest of digital publishing group. Will send out an
e-mail if that seems necessary. Then continue on next steps towards
producing a note based on concern/issues."
Ivan: "Did you identify features/requirements that are relevant for teh DPUB world but are not addressed in current documents?"
Charles: "That's a bit more complicated. Such as Page Numbers, Drop Caps, etc, but some of these things could be addressed from other specs."
Ivan: "Once you have the first body of documentation done, you may want to have guest-stars in to discuss new ways and new ideas for what could the gaps be."
<tzviya> You were a little concerned about resources - how are you doing?
Charles: "We were low on resources, and we're running low. Just a small subset of assets were helping out. We're definintely in need of additional resources. If anyone is interested in creating this note, we need as much help as we can get."
<tzviya> and, what is your timeline for publishing a note? who is the audience?
Charles: "The audience is publishers. Timeline... Ideally by the end of this year. My availability just got cut in half so I'm running low on time myself. Deborah is as well. We would need more help."
Deborah: "What we've been doing is modeling alot of work. The other group had a lot of volunteers to data-gather. They had alot more regular/steady input from a regular weekly commitment. Chairs also did an enormous amount of work. Charles and I are struggling with new amounts of work, so we need additional retailers."
<HeatherF> Happy to volunteer, I just feel too ignorant to be useful
Tzviya: "Been working with PF for draft of
ROLE module. (link posted) Very early editors draft of digital
publishing vocab. ARIA. Cut out a few additional terms as other areas
would be better addressed elsewhere. When we can include ETS and other
groups, we can add more. This is the list of terms we are working with."
...: "Feel free to look through it. Some terms still need clarificaiton.
Need to also remove some ambiguity from the terms/defintions and make
sure things have context outside of digital publishing as well."
Markus: "One of the first challenges is to
determine the scope of publishing and the defintions of the terms.
Almost thousands of potential terms and canditates. Going to start
simple with basic stuff - for general simple books - and evolve it via
other modules and extending this model. "
...: "We're not entirely sure we've reached the sweet spot of 'too much'
and 'too little' but we'll be dealing with this over the next few
months. Making sure it is useful for a significant portion of content
out there."
... "Resource issues?"
Tzviya: "Right now we are OK with resources and timeline. Very dependent on PF. Will know more on thursday when we meet with that group. First editor's draft will be soon? Possibly before the IDPF meeting at BEA (may)"
<tzviya> remember to book for F2F in May!