– DRAFT –
Publishing Steering Committee

<Ralph> previous 13-Nov

EPUBCheck milestones

Ralph: let's get started
… funding messages have gone out

Bill_Kasdorf: I want to report where they went
… BISG newsletter
… it will be mentioned in Editeur newsletter
… Inclusive Publishing
… "French and Euro organizations"

Ralph: do we need to talk about near-term milestone issues wrt DAISY?

George: what do you mean?

Ralph: the funding for the remainder of this project contract

Avneesh: from epubcheck management call
… website will be launched before Xmas
… not sure about URL issue
… the next milestone is API at end of January
… there will two releases, one on main track
… media overlays, tests, which don't change public api
… then a release with new API
… first release will be production ready
… the 2nd release will require feedback and config, especially if integrating via JAVA or command line
… after the website launch, I will send a progress report for epubcheck to steerco
… the amount required for the December payment is already in the bank, so there would be no problem in releasing the December payment to DAISY when I send the formal progress report.
… but are short for the feb/march payment

<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to comment on URI for epubcheck web site

Ralph: there's been some email discussion about a w3.org uri for this
… I need to follow up on that thread

ivan: it's related to the url discussion
… what you mean by api is that you download the package and can add to my own java application
… but does not mean we have ready to run online validator

Avneesh: correct
… it's a kind of interface, it's not a web api. It's an SDK api.

ivan: is it a big step to make web based validator

Avneesh: that's a different project which only uses epubcheck in back end
… there's more code to link web stuff with epubcheck commands

ivan: there's a url on the idpf website which uses the latest epubcheck?

Avneesh: it uses 4.1.1 (for EPUB 3.0.1)

ivan: it uses epub 3.2 checker?

ivan: we thought we were going to provide a w3c url for the online validation service... which is still something we want.

<dauwhe> (I'm not going to try to comprehensively minute a misunderstanding)

zhengxu: I was thinking about online epubcheck
… i'm writing typescript to make it work online
… can I collaborate with people?
… I'll make it public soon

Ralph: sounds like a CG task force?
… bill has to leave in 15min

Meeting cadence for 2021

Ralph: the suggestion is that our biweekly meetings... we may not need that. Change to monthly, but keep an option for a second meeting in some months
… I picked the 2nd Friday of the month

<liisamk> +1 to proposal on revised meetings

<Daihei> +1

<zhengxu> +1

<Bill_Kasdorf> +1

<wendyreid> +1

<dauwhe> +1
… how much notice would y'all need for a 2nd meeting in a month?
… 24hr is too little
… do you need a week's notice?
… do we need to decide by the first Monday?

<ivan> +1

<George> +1

liisamk: a week's notice is fine

<wendyreid> +1 to a week

Bill_Kasdorf: no later than a week in advance

Bill_Kasdorf: I might put in a placeholder as a cautionary note

Ralph: I'll schedule and generate invitations for the 2nd friday

Roundtable

Ralph: this is an opportunity to share anything that concerns you
… what assistance do you need from your colleagues
… upcoming milestones...

Dave: two current issues in the EPUB 3 WG
… I'm still trying to get answers from Hachette Legal in France
… we still need a Testing Lead for the WG
… this will be a large and complicated job
… the WG is trying to address some old issues; one was about iframes that reference Youtube videos
… remote resources that are called from iframes
… it might be useful to get more sense from the business group on how much of a need this is
… there are lots of different ways of getting videos in EPUB
… are people frustrated or limited by the current situation?
… we don't know how important this use case is
… it opens a massive can of worms about security

Bill_Kasdorf: Testing Lead might be a candidate for fundraising from the BG

George: on one of our calls the other day, I brought up the issue of video
… one of the publishers said the biggest problem was file size
… we didn't think it was an issue for a11y because of a lack of implementation of video
… but if it was a reality we'd need to test on a11y issues
… on read 2.0 I do see questions about why digital books don't have media content
… ebooks are not keeping with modern technology

Dave: we've tried to answer the read20 questions and no one in my part of the publishing world is interested
… on fundraising for a testing lead; we've talked about this before
… I feel it would be extremely difficult
… EPUBcheck is something everyone uses and depends on
… but to fund someone to work on a [spec test suite] that is so distant from day-to-day workflow is difficult

Garth: re: video
… we are partially down the path with external video
… via the video tag
… I think we don't know how far we are broken
… woohoo to WEndy on getting through multiple renditions last night
… and sequent traffic on github indicated concurrence

wendyreid: dave gave all the updates
… we talked about video last night, we need testing support
… I don't think fundraising for testing will work
… and we'll need more money for epubcheck for 3.3
… but we do need support
… we have volunteers willing to help

<Bill_Kasdorf> for the record I was thinking more along the lines of a grant rather than individual contributions. Just a thought.

wendyreid: we need a wrangler who also has technical know-how
… and even if they have only one of those skills, we can work around that
… wrangler and/OR techie
… what we really need is time and enthusiasm
… one more meeting this year, then dive back in in January

Ralph: resource to lead testing efforts is critical

George: question about wrangling vs tech. Just nag people? Remind people of due dates? Sets up schedule?
… tracking tests? Is it a project manager

wendyreid: it's partly project management and understanding the big picture
… keeping an eye on things, report back to the group

George: the only other thing I would add... if there is interest in Video that's not in the mainstream of publishing but in education content or OER content, that might be something good to nurture in the CG

Ralph: incubation is a good role for the CG
… but there is a specific question about the current state of the spec
… good to raise in BG

liisamk: we're happy to take that up in the BG
… we need to be mindful of where things have gone this year
… but everyone learned video this year
… they're gonna want to do it in books
… but there's concern about security--there's a bug allowing video to be easily downloaded
… we're talking about TDM stuff in the americas call
… and what it means for the business, and what the opportunities are

Cristina: I'm not sure if it's a wide issue on Video; I'd like to ask some publishers
… it's used in education some, but maybe more in websites than in EPUB, AFAIK
… I will ask
… for sure not trade in Italy
… don't remember if it's in the survey?

zhengxu: we have meeting next week
… and some issues in github in our repo
… more related to epub spec, I think
… we'll have to move to the epub-spec repo

ivan: one thing that wendy and dave didn't report
… I have submitted the request for the FPWD of EPUB 3.3, two REC-track docs and a separate request to publish the overview and MR doc as WG notes
… Matt is on a road trip; we'll publish in January
… the main difference is editorial
… the RS-specific things are in a new doc
… Multiple renditions is separated into a note
… but everything else is in a big core spec, so you don't have to remember that packages are in publications ;)
… there are some minor things
… webp and opus
… in january we'll talk about whether we can use HTML in EPUB
… because this is the first w3c version, we should make some noise

Ralph: w3c's practice is not to do press releases on first public working drafts, but blog posts are in order

<Zakim> dauwhe, you wanted to comment on this

Dave: I prefer the WG chairs handle the communications around this, in conjunction with others
… we will want to be careful about how this is messaged
… not over-state the case

<Avneesh> +1 not to verstate the case

Garth: there is an IDPF board meeting on Monday
… for legal updates
… we'll have to circle back with W3M
… I wanted to ask Ivan about publication date of FPWD
… as it has relevance to copyright issues and the litigation

ivan: before Jan 15th
… we can't do it in December

Garth: lastly, maybe into next year we could kick off discussions with the BG proper about how we can push adoption of audiobooks
… we build things and they don't come
… and we don't want audiobooks to end up like multiple renditions, etc etc etc

<wendyreid> +100000

George: Math activities with the WG probably moving forward in 2021
… we see MathML implementation in Chrome
… once that enters the main branch that will have a huge impact on us
… how should publishing be involved with the math group?

<zhengxu> (NICE, cheers for MathML back to Chrome)

ivan: I don't think cheering from the sidelines is good enough. We should be more active.
… they need representatives from different communities
… we should find someone to be in the WG
… they define a subset of mathml that is required to be implemented in browsers
… what goes into the core matters
… we invited them on one of our calls
… we should do this in January
… talking before the charter is finalized is important

Advance notice: Working in progress on a Math Working Group Charter [23-Nov]

Ralph: advance notice was sent

Ralph: we can comment on the charter, so it meets the needs of the publishing community
… best to do it RIGHT NOW
… it gets harder after it's out for AC review

Advance notice: Working in progress on a Math Working Group Charter [23-Nov]

Daihei: what's happening in Japan:
… 1. A11y is getting more and more attention
… APL ... there's a significant request from the publishers on what to do
… maybe have a LIA a11y webinar for Japanese publishing community
… and APL will take action to include a11y
… Digital publishing business in Japan has expanded
… it's not just manga, but reflowable content is expanding
… creation of reflowable text-based content costs more than image-based manga
… and publishers are using FXL to embed text
… and we will see a mix of FXL and reflow
… new participants from publisher ??? participated in w3c
… and they are interested in things outside of publishing at w3c
… interested in WOT, immersive web, audiobook, etc
… they are looking for something more advanced

<Zakim> wendyreid, you wanted to ask Daihei a question

Daihei: and taking advantage of new W3C stuff

wendyreid: I'm organizing an accessible publishing conference in Canada next year
… because it's online we can invite more people
… might japanese publishers be interested in attending?

<George> George has a hard stop at the top of the hour and will drop.

wendyreid: it's canadian government funded, but we talk about general publisher needs

Daihei: yes
… I could be coordinator
… APL covers all the publishers
… and EBPAJ

wendyreid: I'll have the organizer call you

Avneesh: good to hear about BG focus on A11y.
… coming back to mathml
… ivan is right that we should pay attention to mathml Core
… mathml core is already being implemented by Igalia in chrome
… there will be pressure on Firefox
… it gets hard to change after it's implemented
… you have to see NOW
… and there is authoring
… this is important for publishers

<ivan> avnesh, hear hear!

zhengxu: it will be nice if we don't have to use mathjax