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Publishing Business Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2017-10-24

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Avneesh Singh, Dan Sanicola, Ivan Herman, Wolfgang Schindler, Cristina Mussinelli, Bill Kasdorf, Graham Bell, George Kerscher, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Jens Klingelhöfer, Julian Calderazi, Junko Kamata, Karen Myers, Luc Audrain, Laurent Le Meurs, Tzviya Siegman, Rick Johnson, Ric Wright, Brian O'Leary, Mateus Teixeira, Garth Conboy, Bill McCoy, Michael Baker, Murata Makoto, Leslie Hulse, Rachel Comerford

Regrets: Paul Belfanti, Virginie Clayssen, Michaela Philipzen

Guests:

Chair: Rick Johnson

Scribe(s): Karen Myers, Ivan Herman

Content:


Rick Johnson: Two items on the agenda today
… first is any questions around TPAC and surrounding meetings
… second is to go over Google doc shared around the task forces

1. TPAC meetings

Rick Johnson: Bill M, I had nominated you
… to go through any open communications about TPAC

Bill McCoy: there are three different things going on there
… the Publishing WG meetings Monday/Tuesday
… Publishing Summit Thursday/Friday
… and Publishing BG Friday afternoon
… BG agenda is for this group
… My main focus has been on the Publishing Summit
… If you have not yet registered, please do so
… Will be great event around intersection of Web platform and publishing as a business
… also a solutions showcase with demos
… receptions, AC meetings
… TPI members who are former IDFP members are entitled to attend the AC Rep meetings
… while the TPI members don’t have full AC Rep voting rights, they do have participation rights
… that is all I had
… or if anyone else wants to join in
… And also there will be late night games of Werewolf

Rick Johnson: Wanted to make sure everyone had an opportunity to ask any questions about what Bill just went through?

Jens Klingelhöfer: When will the PBG meeting end on Friday?

Ivan Herman: I did get a question from the person from a representative from Thomson Reuters
… who plans to come to the F2F meeting at TPAC

Luc Audrain: Exact time of PBG group on Friday afternoon?

Ivan Herman: he was asking if there is or will be an agenda

Rick Johnson: for the Business Group meeting?

Ivan Herman: yes

Rick Johnson: At this time there are two things on the agenda
… first is continuation of discussion we are having today on task forces
… second is discussion on process around the steering committee elections that will happen after TPAC
… at this point, those are the two main agenda items

Bill Kasdorf: just checking if remote access will be available for the remote BG meeting?
… not everyone can make it in person

Ivan Herman: problem is I don’t know if Bill did that
… we had to fill in the AV requests, including telco
… a while ago; not sure if that has been done

Bill McCoy: I will check that out
… the Friday BG is piggy backing the Summit
… and there is not remote access for the Summit

Luc Audrain: TPAC 2017 schedule says 15:00–18:00 for groups on Friday afternoon

Bill McCoy: and another reason why we are not doing elections in real time there
… Expect smaller number of people to stay for the BG meeting; we may be able to arrange something

Rick Johnson: anyone else in the queue?

Rick Johnson: Last call for any other questions for TPAC-related things
… then we will move to the Google doc

2. Task Forces

Rick Johnson: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jpw0KA9StAnWZAaIMqnITmdSOchIZeQIvphX5AmAulg/edit?usp=sharing

Rick Johnson: I have changed permissions for everyone to edit it
… general idea here as we discussed last time
… is to formulate, discover and identify the specific task forces that we want to form
… to address specific needs together
… and solicit specific involvement
… get together on regular basis, provide input to those task forces
… Steering Committee members have each identified those they want to champion
… thought is to take a few minutes and go through each row
… have each champion for that task force talk about what they want to solve and how to move it forward

2.1. welcoming new members to this Business Group

Rick Johnson: Cristina, can you give us an overview?

Cristina Mussinelli: Because W3C is a complex organization
… we would like to offer some advice on how W3C works
… to welcome and be available to for questions; or maybe prepare some short presentation
… an easy FAQ coming in as newbies

Rick Johnson: if this is something you are interested in, please add yourself into the Google doc
… if you have a question, then q+ on irc channel

2.2. Recruit new members

Rick Johnson: we don’t have anyone up yet who has signed up to recruit new members
… we need to continue to grow
… if you are interested to do along with other people, add your name there
… and we will start coordinating with you

2.3. Survey new members

Cristina Mussinelli: yes, to better understand publisher participation; what they are doing; what issues to address
… as we are a BG, important to have a business knowledge about what the participants want, not only the technical ones

Rick Johnson: all right

2.4. Best practices

Rick Johnson: four SC members
… BillK, Rachel, Mike and Liisa

Bill Kasdorf: I will chime in to defer to the other three
… I was first to put my name in here, but I also have my name on another one I would like to lead; I will still participate

Rick Johnson: Rachel, Mike or Liisa, do you want to talk about this?

Rachel Comerford: I’m on the IRC but not the call. I have begun documenting this in the PUBL-CG space

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Rachel has a conflict now; as people find best practices for use cases, we want to disseminate so people can use it

Bill Kasdorf: Rachel is doing a lot of that work in the context of the Community Group

Mike: I am happy to participate in this
… if it needs somebody to lead, I am also happy to lead as well

Rachel Comerford: we are working with BISG to identify the markets that best practices address and gathering existing documentation

Mike: If Rachel has done work already, I am happy to let her continue

Bill Kasdorf: We can take practice of person who is not here…
… should be the same thing

Mike: yes, agree should be the same thing

2.5. Working with other parts of the W3C

Rick Johnson: Ivan, Mike and Tzviya

Tzviya Siegman: A lot of work overlaps with other groups in W3C
… important to keep an eye on what they are doing
… For example, Charles LaPierre is working on ARIA personalization
… so on font adjustment, we would participate here to bring our knowledge to them, and their knowledge to us

Ivan Herman: Another fact
… there may be during other work
… other technical requirements
… that may be covered by some WGs or are relevant as requirements for another WG
… so we should play role between groups
… CSS related issues are the typical ones
… but there might be others

Rick Johnson: Ok

2.6. EPUB 3.1 version issues

Rick Johnson: Garth has your name with Murata

Garth Conboy: yes, that is a research project that I have not yet done
… my plan is to in some copious spare time coming up
… spend some time on the changes document on the 3.0 and 3.1 changes document
… and see if reasonable to re-version 3.0 as 3.1 to see if it addresses concerns from the Far East

Murata Makoto: my plan was to propose for next year
… at this stage of the game, I think this is a research project

Garth Conboy: yes, that was my plan; get a look at it this year
… and flow into next year
… and see what level we need for a 3.02
… I agree with your take, Murata

Rick Johnson: Thank you

2.7. EPUB check

Tzviya Siegman: We are working on a @ for EPUB Check
… over next few weeks
… if you want to help out, please let us know
… we have our next task force meeting tomorrow

Rick Johnson: Is this a TF in motion?

Tzviya Siegman: yes, already in motion, but we desperately need your help

Rick Johnson: yes, we all need this done

2.8. EPUB test

Rick Johnson: George, I have you down for EPUB Test, with Accessibility focus

George Kerscher: Accessibility group is meeting regularly
… next meeting is 1st of November
… if anyone wants to participate, send me an email, and I will get you signed up to help with that testing
… we do have to figure out the home for this site
… we have had meetings with BISG Content Structure group about what we need to do to maintain this long term

Ric Wright: This is Rick Wright
… I am happy to participate

Rick Johnson: George and BillK, there are two roads here
… George on the Accessibility side
… do you want to address your row on EPUB Test maintenance

Bill Kasdorf: I think that ought to be the same thing; we don’t want two separate task forces
… After the Content Structure committee meeting last week
… I think you added that I would be the champion of organizing and keeping this in motion
… I have already, but it’s been slow
… Because of the complexity of the arrangements among the various organizations
… it was a BISG thing, DAISY did the programming; hosting really belongs in W3C now
… we are in a bit of a paralysis now
… no one org can seem to take over and do it
… so there needs to be some active work on this
… Suggest that this TF have members from each of those constituent orgs and we actually schedule regular calls to work this out
… I have specific people
… that I would draft to be on that task force to be in that conversation
… You, Rick, George, Avneesh

George Kerscher: Under the Publishing BG, this TF would be convening
… and we can get together on frequency and agendas
… and it would be independent from my group doing the Accessibility Testing

Bill Kasdorf: you would prefer two separate task forces?

George Kerscher: not necessarily
… we talk about specific areas of testing we have done
… but this BG seems to be at a higher level
… Accessibility may have an additional meeting

Bill Kasdorf: the TF should not undermine what you are doing on Accessibility testing
… that is working and producing sound results
… but we have existential questions on mainstream testing
… for use by developers; we need more people at the table

Rick Johnson: coming out of BISG meeting last week, and to entice you
… one of the things is revisiting some of the fundamental assumptions
… and to continue Accessibility as is
… and maybe other part of TF is a set of files for developers to access from GitHub

Bill Kasdorf: that was an excellent conversation but we need input from this group; fundamentally there are W3C issues

Rick Johnson: I have combined those into one

2.9. MathML and STEM

Ivan Herman: I have put down my name, as it is painful
… we know we have a problem with MathML and with STEM
… I have difficulty to figure out what we should do about it
… there is a Community Group led by Peter Krautzberger
… not sure how far the CG has gone
… what I was hoping is that there would be some kind of implementation strategy for MathML to make it much more usable and much faster than what we have today and what can be done there
… the whole thing is a bit in a dead end
… and yet this community is in the best position to make noise and to make resources to solve this problem
… Web at large does not seem to care so much about MathML; whereas publishing community does care
… If there are people in group to have clearer ideas on how to move forward
… I am happy to shepherd and help
… but I am not the one to solve this problem by myself

Michael Baker: @ivan I can help with MathML

2.10. media overlays

Rick Johnson: media overlays does not have a person associated with this
… Ivan or Garth, do you want to address ww2?

Ivan Herman: EPUB uses SMIL, a small percentage
… but a problem in the WG

Ivan Herman: that SMIL is practically not implemented by any of the browsers
… so it’s not clear on web publishing what we would have and use in place of that
… in the Accessibility TF there has been some discussion; and we will discuss at TPAC
… one possible outcome is separate spec work
… that could create a minimal layer
… that is enough for publishing world
… and implementable through some tricky JS
… and polyfill or whatever
… and where it comes back to BG
… is that this may lead to a separate WG
… not clear to me that this work should be done in the Publishing WG
… what comes out would be useful not only for Publishing but for the Web at large
… Would need help in chartering, going through the whole process with experts to get this rolling
… fine for my name to be a coordinator for this
… Marissa is working on this; as is Daniel

Rick Johnson: good summary

George Kerscher: Janina asked why TTML and WebVTT not sufficient for multimedia needs?
… We will discuss this with Janina with the architecture

Ivan Herman: The question on effort on anything we do
… if existing techs are relevant or now
… we need to take into account
… TTML and WebVTT are clearly there
… a new API on Web Animation
… that has a bunch of notions that are relevant here
… we may be lucky and have everything at our disposal and I would be happy about that

2.11. General accessibility

Rick Johnson: Luc, Graham and Cristina

Cristina Mussinelli: when I put in the grid first, it did not have Accessibility
… but it would be good to communicate what we are doing generally, not only technically on Accessibility
… something we have already done
… we were involved in the ISO discussion for the European Accessibility Act

Luc Audrain: yes, we are involved in making Accessibility known to publishers, suppliers and other orgs in Europe
… which is why I subscribed to this line

Rick Johnson: Cristina, you have next line as well about communications to outside world

Cristina Mussinelli: yes, we make a lot of information available to technical staff
… for example, Publishing Summit is known by tech community
… but we need to be more known more broadly
… for example Publishers Weekly, the Italian Publishers communications
… I think this is on-going; work with W3C Comms on articles
… for things that may be related on EDRLab on reading solutions; Readium

Rick Johnson: excellent

2.12. ISO standardization

Rick Johnson: Luc, you are up

Luc Audrain: Happy to see that Murata is here also
… we have this reflection, discussions on ISO standardization for Accessibility
… to go to Accessibility as a standard in ISO
… we need several steps
… with different versions of EPUB
… and we are working on this already
… something that is going on
… My part is to make the European Commission aware of this
… the EU Act may lead to a standard; want this to be well standardizaed

Murata Makoto: to submit for int'l standard
… we await ok from W3C management
… Bill McCoy?
… Are we waiting for permission from W3C management?

Bill McCoy: yes, it is being discussed; but there were some questions
… Francis is going to research those questions before we ask for W3M blessing to the recommendation
… when we first had this discussion, it was before Francis took over @34
… Am I wrong that we are waiting for answers from Francis?

Bill Kasdorf: yes, that is correct
… and he has worked with Murata on this

Luc Audrain: I have an issue on this
… in France there is no SC34 commission

Murata Makoto: I think France is a member, but I have not seen active participants from France

Luc Audrain: I don’t think so; the French National Body for standards said there is no SC34 commission in France
… there is an SC35
… would be good to have dialogue between the two
… there are interfaces with accessibility issues
… that is where WCAG2.0 is an ISO standard

Murata Makoto: I thought WCAG was PASS submitter

Luc Audrain: I can confirm we cannot vote on your new work item

Bill: SC34 v 35 is one of questions Francis is exploring

Murata Makoto: I checked and @ is not in SC35

Luc Audrain: I will continue to discuss
… spoke with Francis at Frankfurt Book Fair

Murata Makoto: I can send you details on this

Rick Johnson: Sounds like this task force is moving ahead
… and we applaud you for doing this

Luc Audrain: it’s a strange world

Rick Johnson: Two more to go here

2.13. EPUB and Metadata

Rick Johnson: Graham, Luc and Brian

Graham Bell: I added it so we must not forget it
… as a BG
… we want to sell books, journals, etc. and we need to properly present it in the supply chain
… Not aware of specific issues at the moment, but I am happy to deal with issues referred to me and us, both W3C and within EDItEUR

2.14. requirements across sectors

Rick Johnson: I added Robbie Robson from Eduworks

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: there are a lot of things we talked about when this group formed
… look at what the marketplace needs; readers, publishers, etc. and gather those requirements and feed to the appropriate teams

Rick Johnson: excellent
… also received from Robbie
… he is looking for interested participants to work on IEEE tech committee that he is involved with

2.15. General TF issues, next steps

Cristina Mussinelli: A general question
… do we need to be only on our own or may we encourage someone from our organization to be part of the discussion?

Rick Johnson: technically, I don’t think there is a reason they cannot take place

Cristina Mussinelli: For some topics, like metadata, we have people who are more knowledgeable than me
… just to know

Rick Johnson: let me touch on next steps
… Rachel, you are here and volunteering you!

Rachel Comerford: I was on irc and on another meeting
… I am happy to be volunteered for the best practices work
… for CG, that is where I am right now
… I did want to say to Liisa, it sounds like there may be some overlap
… with Best Practices and needs you are looking at
… want to make sure we look at needs and not force a BP onto another area
… for example on a journal publisher

Bill Kasdorf: +1 to Rachel

Mateus Teixeira: +1

Rachel Comerford: would be good to coordinate on the various verticals so we can do recommendations for both requirements and bp

Wolfgang Schindler: +1 to Rachel

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Absolutely agree we should coordinate

Avneesh Singh: there is a lot of overlap in these Task Forces in BG and the WG

Ivan Herman: +1 to Avneesh

Avneesh Singh: what is the role of the various TFs
… good to have strategic outcomes document
… so people can know the objectives among the various task forces
… second thing is maybe we should look beyond the BG

Avneesh Singh: in some cases some separate community groups could take over the task forces' work
… and bring people into the BG

Rick Johnson: I wanted to to talk about the next steps
… this list is not what the BG will do by itself
… we identified what we are interested in
… and then we will have to find out with whom to work, find those groups, etc
… my proposal is that on the TPAC F2F we discuss this, to see where we need to create something, etc

Rick Johnson: If you are at TPAC
… please help us create where we need to create and move forward with that
… Let me check queue one more time

Bill Kasdorf: how public is this list of task force happenings?
… is this something to keep internally or to be shared?
… it’s a pretty impressive list of things

Rick Johnson: I would say this is a working draft
… about where we want to get people involved
… where we come out after that meeting, we would want to share

Bill Kasdorf: ok, so promote what we are doing post TPAC

Karen Myers: +1

Bill Kasdorf: speak up if contrary opinions
… or represent different expectations or outcomes

Rick Johnson: that sounds great

Rick Johnson: Thank you everyone for participating in this launch of the TF efforts
… Look forward to seeing many of you

Karen Myers: meeting adjourns