W3C

– DRAFT –
Publishing Business Group Telecon

26 May 2020

Attendees

Present
Angela Doll, Avneesh Singh, Bill Kasdorf, Cristina Mussinelli, Daihei Shiohama, Dave Cramer, Ivan Herman, Jeff Jaffe, Jonathan Greenberg, Julie Blair, Leslie Hulse, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Murata Makoto, Melanie Bockmann, Ralph Swick, Tzviya Siegman, Wendy Reid, Wolfgang Schindler
Regrets
-
Chair
Liisa
Scribe
dauwhe, wendyreid

Meeting minutes

EPUB 3 WG Charter

liisamk: Topic: EPUB 3 WG Charter

wendyreid: the charter is going well
… we've resolved quite a few issues
… we have an open PR we can close today, about a11y

<ivan> current charter proposal

wendyreid: the charter's in good shape
… we still don't have much feedback from other publishers

<ivan> PR version of the charter waiting for a merge

wendyreid: we'd still like feedback

ivan: I have put the reference to the charter text and the PR in IRC
… makoto had a question, but dauwhe and I answered
… about timing, I did a PR

<Ralph> pull #47; EPUB A11y improvements

ivan: which moved the starting time to September rather than July
… I had asked WendyS how much time it would take to go through W3M
… missing comments from outside Japan is a problem
… the charter has been out there for review for two months now
… so I think we should go ahead with the AC vote
… knowing that if we don't get enough positive votes from the AC, the WG won't happen

dauwhe: I just wanted to remind everyone that Cristina did post several issues
… I don't know if Cristina is happy with the responses we've provided

jeff_: for new WGs on 9/1
… there's a question about participating in TPAC
… I wonder what the chairs think about that question
… and if they plan to have meetings with other groups

wendyreid: we do plan on having a meeting
… meeting with A11y guidelines WG is certainly in order, maybe other ones

ivan: the charter already includes a reference to TPAC
… as part of the planning
… that was discussed with the chairs

jeff_: not to have in the charter, but the information is necessary for the meeting planners

ivan: for the comment of Dave on Cristina, I agree she should say yes or no before we go to the AC

<Bill_Kasdorf> Sorry to be late.

ivan: one thing that came up is that there were several issues discussed where agreement was these are things the WG should discuss, but shouldn't change the charter text itself
… so I set up a label in the repo, to leave the issues open for the WG
… and the chairs will look up those issues

dauwhe: Jeff I did reply to the questionnaire
… the information is provided to the meeting planners

Avneesh: responding to Dave's and Ivan's q about Cristina
… we have been having those discussions, and I think most of those issues are resolved
… people are expecting the WG to take over many a11y things
… which isn't possible
… and most of this work is already happening in other peoples
… we're already working with AGWG on page numbers, etc
… a lot of things are already in progress, it would be good to clarify

ivan: I think the current text is oK
… we say there are open issues, we give examples, we have liaisons...
… what you mention should be part of the early planning phase of the WG
… but shouldn't be in the charter

liisamk: we were just talking about the charter, and have the issues you raised been resolved?

Cristina: are you speaking about a11y act, or in general?
… I think it's fine now

ivan: thanks

update on the future of the CG(s)

Ralph: I have the action to work on the infrastructure and technical details
… we have a plan; I have to grease the wheels to make it happen

liisamk: what's the plan?

Ralph: the intention to merge the PCG and EPUB 3 CG
… and call the merged group PCG
… the tricky bit is we want the mailing list to be the current mailing list of EPUB 3 CG
… that's the part that's causing the stickiness

tzviya: I've been in touch with Mateus and Jeff to get things off the ground
… Mateus has been swamped by his day job
… I'll have a call with him in the next week or two

liisamk: anything else about the CG?

Ralph: I better get the mailing list sorted out :)

EU A11y

Cristina: with Avneesh addition we may have solved what we discussed in the last call
… there were comments today about oNIx and schema that might be included in the spec rather than charter
… they may be separate standard related to EAA
… I don't think we need to be explicit about metadata standard in charter, but could be in the specifications
… and needs to be defined at European level

jeff_: the way i understood that, you thought there would be value in addressing metadata in EPUB 3 WG

<Makoto> I won' argue this time. I plan to argue when a new major version of EPUB A11Y is to be created.

Cristina: yes, I think so

dauwhe: The EPUB 3 charter doesn't mention ONIX because it is a separate standard, it is out of scope

Cristina: when we say in the charter that the spec should meet the needs of EAA, but we don't need to be specific about

dauwhe: we can mention how to point to ONIX records, but it is not the responsibility of the WG, and doesn't need to be mentioned in the charter

<tzviya> +1 dauwhe

<Bill_Kasdorf> +1 re metadata strategy

<jeff_> [Just to be clear, I was not pushing for including Metadata in the WG; I was only suggesting that if Cristina wanted it in the WG, it should be in the Charter.]

dauwhe: we run into trouble trying to define our own custom metadata schemes, we rely on external vocabs for everything aside from the small amount of desciptive metadata
… I hope we continue to learn from experience

Avneesh: +1 to Dave and Cristina
… metadata is independent

+1 dauwhe as usual :)

Avneesh: we only added things that weren't in ONIX and schema to fill gaps
… and we don't have time to harmonize things in the timeline of our work

liisamk: I agree that metadata in epub needs to be minimal, but it needs to be there for reading system to interpret the file
… and then there's something about telling the reading world what to expect from that content

Cristina: any other comments about a11y part?

Avneesh: what you said is good; I think we're OK for the charter

Cristina: I think the timeline we proposed is fine for EAA

<Bill_Kasdorf> just pointing out that Onix is mainly for the retail trade book supply chain; it is less important and sometimes not even used in scholarly and higher ed publishing

Cristina: we need to follow step-by-step what will happen. We can't define everything in detail right now

liisamk: could you give the group an explainer on the timeline?

cristina: there's a milestone in June next year, where they decide which type of standard they will use for EAA
… it's best to have something for them; this is the important timeline
… everything else depends on w3c process
… but we do want to have a doc for EAA that also complies with w3c process at that time
… first timeline is summer 2021

survey

wendyreid: let me send some links...

https://‌drive.google.com/‌open?id=11KjkTzyuOeDLlCiAccQYSJ5J-vNHJ_s2U3r4ws1FPLA

wendyreid: yesterday I posted the blog post on the w3c blog
… feel free to share

<tzviya> https://‌www.w3.org/‌blog/‌2020/‌05/‌publishingw3c-epub-survey-results/

wendyreid: I don't have access to p@w3c twitter

https://‌www.w3.org/‌blog/‌2020/‌05/‌publishingw3c-epub-survey-results/

wendyreid: we sent out links, got a lot of attention
… I'll let everyone read the blog post and the slides
… it looks like a big success

<jeff_> PBG++ Great survey

<jeff_> Wendy++ Great summary

liisamk: Laurent has asked Cristina, Daihei, and I to give a preso at the DPUB summit on Tuesday, June 2 at 5:30PM CET
… and we've been thinking that we need to put together an executive summary, which could be shared with management

tzviya: I think that the slide deck is in good shape for an exec summary

tick tock tick tock tick tock

tzviya: you can flip through quickly, and the blog post is also a good summary. I don't think we need a shorter version.

tick tock tick tock

liisamk: I disagree, because I could not pass that deck to my boss
… even the blog post is too much
… I might do this for myself, and I can share

Cristina: I was thinking that the executive summary would be more management oriented
… describing the need of the new charter and less technical
… we need a different point of view

Daihei: I agree with Cristina
… we need an executive summary to all the business executives, so we can raise their interest in the epub activities
… and can lead to their joining the WG and CG
… for Japan, I'm intending to translate this exec summary into Japanese, and also send to Taiwan
… the whole purpose is to get their attention
… I want the precious and important information to be shared

jeff_: did we schedule a meeting with the 250 participants to thank them for participating, sharing the right level of summary
… and to tell them how impactful their input has been in their going-forward strategy?

liisamk: we don't have everyone's emails
… when we talked about next steps
… we wanted to give a high level, medium level, blog post...
… and the need for new work
… but we also want to talk to this group for the folks who wanted to continue to have a conversation
… we could have call-in workshops
… as follow-up

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask what the purpose of the blog post was

tzviya: the SC has been talking about a webinar to thank and inform
… we'll talk about it on Friday
… the blog post does a pretty good job, it goes into a lot of detail
… we can't ask volunteers to write too many versions of the same content; we all did have the ability to review the blog post

EPUB reading system bug github repo

liisamk: we have one bug so far
… my team is working on adding more; we have some tech difficulties
… how do we want to promote this? do others have bugs?

tzviya: a lot of us are familiar with #eprdctn
… on twitter

<Ralph> Repository for EPUB 3 Reading Systems bugs

tzviya: it's a good place to start
… some RS people hang out there, too
… maybe wendy, jeff, Garth, Brady, and Kindle can participate

liisamk: Kindle is happy about this and is paying attention

tzviya: we hope people from RSs will comment
… we should tweet about this

liisamk: we had proposed a couple of months ago that we would have guests at our meetings
… laurent was our first, talking about Thorium
… so what do we do next?
… what would be helpful to the group. Thoughts?

Cristina: we want to define what kinds of presentations we want to hear
… not only marketing
… we need to say what fits and what doesn't
… we need a clear idea what should be presented, and what shouldn't

Daihei: I would like to invite people to the PBG conference as guest speaker to stimulate interest of the publishing industry
… and that's relating to something happening around the web and in the various w3c groups
… which are doing things around digital media, which is close to digital publishing, like in the media and publishing group
… I would like to have people from CG talk about incubation opportunities
… and people from w3c other groups to talk about what they are seeking from p@w3c
… so we can have exchange and know what's happening in the web world
… instead of guest speaker to market their services
… PBG should find the business interests in publishing and close to publishing

tzviya: that's an interesting idea
… a lot of W3C folks work on incubation and what's coming next in w3c
… are you interested in someone like WendyS who's in charge of strategy and what's next for all w3c
… or people from things like WebXR CG
… or people from WICG which does a lot of different things?
… we don't need an answer today

Daihei: exactly, that's what I'm looking for
… and WOT
… device side or lifestyle side and content side go hand-in-hand
… we need to set the priority list, the chairs could work on that

<Ralph> [I suspect we could sort the WGs, IGs, and CGs according to their potential to be of interest to Publishing@W3C]

Daihei: we want to expand our reach to those groups

liisamk: any other thoughts about guests for our meetings?

Ralph: great idea, Daihei
… the breadth of things w3c is working on and thinking about working on; we could sort things according to their likelihood of interest to publishing
… I can work with you to sort that list

meeting schedule

<liisamk> * June 9th/10th NA/Asia * June 23rd NA/Europe

<liisamk> * July 7th/8th NA/Asia * July 21st NA/Europe

<liisamk> * August 4th/5th NA/Asia * August 18th NA/Europe

liisamk: scheduling is easier because we're not scheduling around conferences

Daihei: speaking of schedule
… tonight at 11pm PDT
… there's a w3c japanese member conference starting at 2pm jst
… I will talk about digital publishing plus
… for 20min starting at 3PM JST
… done in Japanese

<Ralph> W3C Japanese member meeting

Daihei: a lot of people from other groups will talk about WOT, XR, etc

liisamk: can I share possible good news?
… last week I found that our friends at Kindle intend for FXL books to have two covers
… so we can one EPUB to rule them all for kid's picture books :)

ivan: it would be nice to have them in the WG

liisamk: thanks everyone

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 117 (Tue Apr 28 12:46:31 2020 UTC).