See also: IRC log
<ivan> print + karen
<Julian_Calderazi> Julian Calderazi - Team Leader @ DigitalBe
<Brian> also present
<scribe> Scribenick: Karen
Rick: Let's get started
... Welcome everyone
<RickJ> https://www.w3.org/2017/04/25-pbg-minutes.html
<laudrain> Me too
Rick: minutes from last meeting are in irc
... any comments or changes; if not, assume they are approved
... second point on agenda
... Per our previous discussions, to take advantage of W3C focus and the
honeymoon period
... and the work we are doing to elevate to a higher level, I have
submitted my name to the AB [Advisory Board] election
<ivan> rick++
<George> Go Rick Go
Rick: encourage you to have your AC Rep vote for me, to encourage everyone that this is happening
<laudrain> +1
Rick: Charter update; Ivan, where do we stand?
Ivan: We have 43 or 45 votes in in favor of
the charter
... it's a great number
... We have the necessary numbers; the more the merrier but it's really
good
... Out of those
... Nine TPI members
... Something I reported on two weeks ago, there were two comments with
objections on the charter
... One of two we discussed and we have an alternative proposal that
works
... We have another one [objection] that we are working on
... Looking to find a consensus; if not, W3M will have to decide on that
one
... We also have some comments in favor of the charter
... but asking us to look at text and improve the English and stylistic
changes
... Something that Tzviya, who is back by the way, has taken up to do
... So this week
... The voting period ends on 14 May, end of this week
<pbelfanti> Welcome back, Tzviya!
Ivan: from that point on, we will have our
discussions with W3M [W3C Management Team]
... At this moment I am cautiously optimistic it will happen without
problems
... So plan to have group start end of June is probably happening
Rick: For those of us who have not been involved, is 45 a high or low number for these types of votes?
Ivan: It's a high number; requirement is to
have 5% of membership to vote
... so that's around 22-23 votes without TPI members
... with TPI it's a bit higher
... so it's 47 taking into account the objections
... It's a nice number; we may reach the 50 number this week
... Comparatively to other proposals for other charters it's a high
number
Rick: We are getting background noises from
some people; please mute unless you are speaking
... Any questions on the charter
<pbelfanti> I voted just before this meeting, so it may not have registered yet
Tzviya: Better?
[I will type it in]
Tzviya: I will call in
Ivan: Garth and Bill were also part of the
discussion; is Bill on the call?
... Maybe they have something to add?
Bill: I am on call but nothing to add
Garth: you did fine
... I can touch on the next agenda item
... the Interest Group, which is largely a repeat
... We are doing updates to charter, every other week meetings as we
await kick-off of the Publishing Working Group
... Now working on the agenda for that meeting
... here is the link
<garth> PUB WG Agenda & RSVP: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J0VlZbMFj-33tfhZe0EK543NWFlx6dyDHauqkPwMeEI/edit#
Garth: Feel free to contribute or comment on
that
... advance planning for the Working Group kick-off meeting
... Very likely to be a Working Group meeting in New York a month from
now
Rick: I have a question for you, Garth
... There were a number of open items to sum up
... having a place for comments to land
... any concerns or open items?
Garth: we did discuss and either resolved,
or did not think of all of them
... CSS Accessibility being top of mind
... we either reflected in charter where they woudl land
... we published the two documents as Notes
... Ivan did it
... Either we are in very good shape, or there are items the Pub IG is
handling and has not yet found homes for
Rick: No red flags
Garth: right
Tzviya: I was going to say about the number
of comments
... if I took advice
... am I correct in assuming @@
<garth> Tzviya we really can’t hear you… please type.
<MURATA> I cannot hear her.
Tzviya: Better?
<Julian_Calderazi> clap clap!
<MURATA> Great!
<garth> Woohoo!
Tzviya: The comments we received from many
people, not just the formal objections
... a lot of comments on the charter were you have a lot of words; keep
it brief and too the point
... I could probably boil this down to a few bullets; but if I do that,
then we have to send it back to members to vote again, is that correct?
Ivan: that is correct
Tzviya: that makes my editing job easier then
Ivan: The comments are under the heading in
the review
... we are ok with the charter and the WG; we are in favor of WG even if
you do not take the comments into account
... If we do things which are clearly wrong, mistakes, that is fine, but
radically re-writing the charter would be too much
Garth: If we were to do that, we may risk
losing the 45 positive votes
... let's do the word smithing to make things work
... but not go back for a vote
Rick: Ivan, you are in the queue
BillMcCoy: as person who will be defending
the charter in the W3M senior management meeting
... I think we should err on the side of minimal edits
... so that Tim or others do not suggest we go back for another pass
... Jeff indicated as much to me and Ralph last week
... Bending over backwards to address a few number of objections could
boomerang
... If we can make a few edits and make everyone happy, that's fantastic
... But even if charter is not perfect, we really don't want to go back
to another voting cycle
... So that's my two cents
Garth: Be nice for Ivan for to answer Dave's
question
... My response is if it's non-substantive, W3M stays cool
... but look to Ivan's response
Ivan: that's true
... you can believe Garth
... Two more comments
... One is not minor thing I forgot to say for the vote
... Among the 45 we have 33 commenters who have said that they intend to
participate in the Working Group; that's good. We need that.
... One of them is Apple. That is good; they were not active in the IG
... The other thing back to Garth's report on the Interest Group
... there is one area where there has been no action in the past period
... Not sure if it's something the BG should look at…it's MathML
... anything with mathematics
... still an open issue
... that has not fundamentally improved in the past year; that is still
a problem
Rick: Are you suggesting this is a topic to handle?
Ivan: Not sure what I'm suggesting
<dauwhe> Note that the Math CG is active
Ivan: where we want to go with it at some
point in time
... Discuss at some point and what are the possible avenues
Rick: I put myself in the queue about the 33
people who want to participate
... Garth, do we know that these 33 people have the information about
the Working Group meeting in June?
Ivan: Charter references the F2F in June,
but not the logistics
... that's a good point
... Once the group is finalized then Garth, Tzviya and I will need to
contact the AC Reps of those companies in case they are not yet in the
Interest Group
Rick: Would it behoove us to start that outreach earlier, given flight expenses; make sure they want to come
Ivan: Formally it's a bit awkward
... makes me a bit uneasy
... Let's not open up the can of worms; let's wait a week
Garth: Ivan, one idea is because we have
many member of the CG, we could send something to them
... or is that a bad idea?
Ivan: No, we can send out what we are
planning
... the information about the place and the dates
BillK: Don't you have to be a member to be part of the WG?
Ivan: Yes
... people must be in the WG for the F2F historically
Garth: we do have to enforce that piece, but hope to have more members
Rick: Come Monday, let's copy email addresses and send them the logistics
Garth: I think that's a good idea
George: On the Math side of things
... with the Accessibility folks, we are working on a way to include
math in that
... it involves an SVG image for math and a mechanism to have the math
in there as well
... kind of off screen
... so that AT could get at it
... We are a couple weeks away from having a technique to recommend
... Not sure if we have a long-term solution, but expect to send the
solution to our publisher friends for feedback about whether they can do
this in their production processes
BillMcCoy: About half of TPI members have
not done their paperwork yet
... I think we should reach out to the EPUB 3 CG
... and the TPI eligible
... because they may not have seen information
<gregdavis> @george - Pearson does a lot of MathML, we’d be glad to look at the SVG workflow
BillMcCoy: some people who did the TPI did
not realize they also have to press the button to join
... Whoever reaches out once vote is completed
... If you are TPI eligible, please complete the paperwork and point
them to me
... Veronica is person for the agreement and payment
... We really want to get TPI eligible people into the fold
... It's a good incentive
... People in CG who want to join the WG, welcome for them to join as
members
... Anyone not a member or TPI member, I'm happy to discuss with them
Rick: A perfect transition for the EPUB 3 CG
update
... Lisa, Dave or Rachel, do you want to give an update?
Dave: We have our first conference call with
25 attendees which was great
... set up infrastructure on GitHub
... set up task forces to address issues we need to delve into
... we already have 12 issues in the GitHub repo
... strong interest in Accessibility
... Lots of people interested in working on education
... and discussions on what to do about EDUPUB on lists
... Ivan and Matt have managed to transfer EPUB 3 spec docs to a W3C
repo
... It feels like progress to me
Rick: Is it a valid assumption
... that you'll take on the contact that Bill McCoy just mentioned?
Dave: yes, we can say that if you have the resources to become a W3C member, we would love to have you at the W3C F2F
BillMcCoy: one more part of it
... about half of TPI members have not yet taken part of it; get them
all in the fold
... I am happy to craft a message for me to do
Dave: yes, that sounds more like a Team activity; more busdev, not work of the CG
BillMcCoy: yes, I will do that; understood
Rick: Any more questions for the CG
... Bill K, your favorite agenda item
... Can you and Brian update us on EPUB Test.org
BillK: We want to keep this front and
center, but we don't yet have a solution for how this should go forward
yet
... Three organizations, BISG, W3C and DAISY
... while Accessibility testing George and his team have been conducting
which should continue
... the mainstream testing needs a radical overhaul
... This is a fundamental resource for the publishing industry
... but it's so out of date that it's not good
... We have to figure out how to do this
... So I'll turn it over the Brian and George
... In terms of W3C, where does it fall?
... Is it in the CG along with EPUB check?
... Maybe Dave, do you want to make a comment on the way of approaching
the mainstream testing?
Dave: I want to update on EPUB Check
... some people in CG have volunteered to do this
... Rick Wright volunteered to do this
... People are finding out what needs to be done
... Some hope of a few volunteers to do it
BillK: what about EPUB Test, different from EPUB Check?
Dave: That is a large issue
... Good idea to have some dedicated time to talk about this with all
the various stakeholders
Brian: BISG is interested in taking the lead
on this
... we had a call two and a half months ago
... I volunteered to put together a problem statement as there is not a
clear statement of what we want this to do
<tzviya> Ric Wright
Brian: On an earlier call, we agreed we want
to improve implementation of EPUB across multiple devices
... not sure it does that
<tzviya> Ric Wright's epubcheck roadmap: https://github.com/IDPF/epubcheck/wiki/WorkPlan
Brian: I will create a problem statement for
this group to review
... Then we will take it apart and see if W3C should solve; see if
George and I should work on it jointly
... but let's first agree what the problem is
BillK: by product of grid; original goal was
to be a resource for publishers to know what features work in what
reading systems
... be a source
... the fact we don't have effective pressure on reading system
developers is one thing
... but having publishers looking at grid and getting incorrect info is
my problem
... But I don't want to unplug the accessibility testing
... Fundamental goal of looking up a reading system and see if it's
supported
... it has been dysfunctional for months
Brian: This conversation is why it's
important to do the problem statement
... not sure I agree that's the main goal
... but we should come to agreement
Tzviya: Brian is making a good point
... may be missing things
... We have said EPUB Test.org is meant to mimic
... and W3C can help can I use, but W3C does not support testing
internally
BillK: Am I hearing you say publishing industry has given up on it as an informational resource?
Tzviya: not sure to go down path right now; but just saying it's not as robust
BillK: We have some stats that it was being used
Tzviya: But we need professional testers
BillK: scaled up to mechanism that did not
work well
... Dave had more of a crowd source strategy that would work better
Brian: We need to come to agreement as the
problem we are solving
... provide better info to publishing industry or change the way EPUB is
used on reading systems
... review is different; which to emphasize
... put together a coherent statement of what this is doing
... If we go down the road of Dave's suggestion for crowd-sourcing, I
still want to know where we want to end up
... it's consistent with what I am trying to do; figure out the problem
we are trying to solve
... I don't understand why EPUB Test rests here
Rick: Comments to make as a vendor who
participated very actively in the early versions
... there were three clear different goals that may not now be the same
weight
... there was a clear Accessibility goal that has needs of its own
BillK: yes and a methodology that is different
Rick: Yes, and as Tzviya said, a clear "can
I use" methodology
... and in its infant stages, that drove the usage decisions
... to prove itself
... not so much validating
... in light of what we are doing for next generation EPUB we should
design with this in mind
BillK: great point, Rick
... was not working everywhere; was one of the goals
... maybe not 100 percent of features
... but that is historical aspect that has gotten out of date
... it may no longer be a priority or necessary at all
Brian: EPUB Test as a grid pre-dates EPUB 3
... probably evolved within that
... agree with the segmentation
... Liisa McCloy-Kelley made the point that there are plenty of
instances where publishers are choosing solutions
... that may or may not be EPUB or a proprietary path
... not sure what we are doing gets to that
... have standard be used; not nec in exclusion
George: strategically the DAISY Consortium
wanted to integrate with mainstream
... previously was stand-alone
... we are here to support whatever direction we decide to go in
... Marissa maintaining site; Matt working on features
<gregdavis> +1 on communicating spec better. There is always someone within Pearson who is trying to say “move away from ePub to a walled garden”…
George: If we did a complete revamp, we
don't have the resources to do ourselves
... we do have a community manager for the Accessibility work we are
doing, along with Avneesh and my participation
... Love to see if go forward and be integrated with whatever happens in
the future
Liisamk: I think it could be a usable
resource
... and I could see where it could be supported
... Content creators are not @
... and Ereaders not necess doing it
... have not seen it adopted across all systems
... maybe a simpler way to make it updated and be usable
... As Tzviya pointed out right now no one uses it
Rick: Brian, are you still planning to bring forth a proposal?
Brian: yes
... I am committed to do it if the group feels it would be of value
... I will commit to draft something with this group before the next PBG
meeting in two weeks
Rick: yes, suggest you do something ahead of
time on the list
... then we'll discuss it
Brian: Thanks
... and I will think carefully about Dave's suggestion
... For the promise that this could have
... We are re-configuring our [BISG] annual meeting
... and say we have this standard like ONYX and here is the
implementation
... and here are the challenges from reading systems and proprietary
... the conversation and the selling is important for us
rkwright: We use epubtest.org all the time
to do regression testing
... it does not go far enough and has all sorts of flaws, but we do use
it
... I would be very interested in discussions about how to improve or
replace
Brian: Can I contact you outside of this call for the details?
rkwright: yes, please do
BillK: even if we have concluded the
publishers don't use it
... not nec because they don't need it
... but the reading system developers
... if we don't have as a publisher facing
... we have lots of developers using it privately to test software
... it provides a valuable service on that regard
Rick: Brian, I can send you the VitalSource
resource
... Moving on
... There has been a robust discussion
Julian_Calderazi: I would like to make a
comment
... I agree with Liisa about the partial adoption of EPUB 3 in different
channels and reading apps
... there is a problem that it is not updated
... we are providing not so useful information to visitors
... so we should think about information that is published now; that is
an issue
Rick: Great comment, thank you
... Bill McCoy, the ISO submission discussion
BillMcCoy: We, the PBG and EPUB 3 CG
<Bill_Kasdorf> that was about Ric Wright's comment: they use epubtest.org to test Readium
BillMcCoy: need to decide what stance to
take on continuation of ISO specs
... upgrad TS T135
... or other opp to separately standardize accesibility in it's current
version
... what are benefits, costs, and how does it stack up against other
priorities
... and it maybe premature to come to a recommendation but we should get
everyone's input on the table
... and consider other implications
... role of EPUB 3 CG
... Don't want to get into all that, but the PBG SC will want to address
RIck: Any questions on this?
Avneesh: To remind the accessibilty spec
going into ISO; this was the plan at IDPF
... we started discussion in 2015
... under the belt of IDPF
... it was there to take to ISO once mature
... whether EPUB 3 will go to ISO we have to discuss
... there may not be much use if it supercedes the new spec
<MURATA> +1
Avneesh: but on accessibility side, it is a
high priority to take it into ISO
... that is the point
Rick: Great comment
<laudrain> +1
Rick: any other comments?
... Doing a quick update on EPUB for Education
... to summarize the conversation as to where it is now
... EDUPUB is not a formal specification
... did not get out of the late draft phase at IDPF
... main goal is to find the right home for it
... it evolves around EPUB 3.1
... one of the things to make sure we discuss
... people have been doing interesting things with EPUB @ and special
vocabs
... there is content in the marketplace that has to be supported
... as we look at Role; EPUB Type does not exists; we should be mindful
of that
... and propose a way to find a home in the CG and provide a way to move
forward
... I will send an email out clarifying what I mean by Role and EPUB
Type
... wanted to invite any questions
George: It seems that the semantics needed
in education
... is a big piece of EPUB for Education plus accessibility and the
anlalytics from IMS being separate
... seems like those chunks would go a long way to creating what we have
called a profile in the past
... expect those semantics will be needed until we have a W3C Rec
... and will also be needed in that W3C Rec
Avneesh: We have two channels; one about
future and one about supporting the existing infrastructure of EPUB 3
... wonder if we need to have such a radical change to depricate
... if main focus is to support EPUB 3
... and more the more radical change in the WG rather than in the CG
pbelfanti: I wanted to add onto what George
said
... Seems to me it can be boiled down to the semantics
... Accessibility will be in 3.1 but where do we preserve the semantics
to describe the complexity of the content on the education side
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask about HTML structure
Rick: and there is accessibility you get by default
Tzviya: Are we doing away with structural semantics or are they an extension from ARIA?
Rick: Question implies a decision, but there
has not been one
... we are discussing questions and who should be making decisions and
where
Tzviya: I do have thoughts but not make decisions today
Schindler: It is decisive who controls the
attributes and whether we save our structural semantics
... for the future so it does not get lost
... we invested a lot of time and energy to define as IDPF specs
... so we should keep it in the HTML language
Rick: Since I initiated this, I'll break it into parts and address by email
<Bill_Kasdorf> +1 to Schindler re dictionary, indexes, and education semantics needing to be preserved
Rick: I will add up EPUB Check into the last
conversation
... anything urgent to bring up?