W3C

– DRAFT –
Publishing Steering Committee

08 January 2021

Attendees

Present
Avneesh, BillKasdorf, Cristina, Daihei, Dave, Garth, George, Ivan, Liisa, Ralph, Tzviya, WendyReid, ZhengXu
Regrets
-
Chair
Tzviya
Scribe
Dave, Ralph

Meeting minutes

<Ralph> previous 11-Dec

EPUBCheck updates

avneeshsingh: the [staging] website is available
… we're talking to Ralph about the W3C URL
… then we will start publicizing
… the milestone releases are ready
… test suite finished
… work is ongoing on public API change
… there will be two releases at end of Jan
… one will be production ready
… then there will be a test release on the public API
… so we can get feedback
… will be in test mode for a month or so, based on feedback
… then merged into main release

<Zakim> Ralph, you wanted to ask Avneesh if he's willing to make an executive decision choosing one of the two URIs

Ralph: Avneesh, can we make a decision on the URI?

(avneesh dropped off)

Ralph: I saw George's email about publishing industry support

<Ralph> George's email on Publishing Industry Infrastructure support from the DAISY Consortium

George: sure.... this could fit here or under the sharing agendum
… Ralph asked me to talk about the email I sent
… DAISY management has an activity in 2021 to secure funding for Ace and for Matt's work on Standards
… Matt and Ace and EPUBCheck are part of the infrastructure that's needed in the industry
… and we'd love to see the industry support that
… we'll put together a doc saying how much we need, and ask associations of publishers and distributors to contribute
… possibly on an annual basis

Garth_: the site looks awesome
… there was some discussion that we didn't want the upload to epubcheck?

avneeshsingh: just download

Garth_: so we didn't recreate the IDPF thing?

avneeshsingh: no, it's dying code

tzviya: it wasn't about security or IP, more that the code base and complexity
… there's high demand; we'll look at it in the future

tzviya: re: fundraising
… it's a great idea; we need to make it clear....
… I'm skeptical how we clarify how it's DAISY or W3C
… is this separate from other EPUBCheck fundraising?

George: It's separate
… I'm hoping that we will be done with the current EPUBCheck milestones
… but EPUBcheck and Ace need to go on
… it is a DAISY activity but it's been embraced by the publishing industry
… DAISY is funding Matt in the a11y area, but there's all that other editing, that is not part of the DAISY mission

BillKasdorf: I heard you focusing on asking organizations for support
… all the organizations are looking for money; their members would be good targets
… but BISG etc would be unlikely to provide funds

George: you're right
… this group might help us design what we're asking for
… we can ask individual companies
… and we have the inclusive publishing partners program
… it's different than what Benetech is doing with certification
… we could expand our partners program and that money go to these activities

BillKasdorf: the publishing orgs can pass your information to members

tzviya: let's wait for a draft from George

workshops

Ralph: Wide Color Gamut and High Dynamic Range for the web

<Ralph> Wide Color Gamut and High Dynamic Range for the Web

Ralph: this will be deeply technical, but relevant to this community
… some content that this community publishes might be interested in better support for better color rendering

<tzviya> https://github.com/w3c/strategy/issues/221

tzviya: not yet official, but there's one about smart agents
… related to WoT
… books being read aloud, a11y...
… let people know that publishing is involved in this area
… Gregorio might be interested

general round table

tzviya: any... thing?
… and we had a TAG election

Ralph: nine candidates for four seats
… one opening was due to a resignation
… 3 seats for two years, one seat for one year
… record number of votes--143 members, more than 30% turnout
… 2 incumbents re-elected
… Tess O'Conner (Apple)
… Sangwan Moon
… two long-time W3C community members, new to the TAG
… Amy Guy
… Lea Verou

zhengxu: Meeting of CG last year
… start some task force in CG around pronunciation

tzviya: enough people?

zhengxu: going well
… a11y group led by Avneesh
… and a spin-off with Makoto
… and for documentation
… Mateus is looking for people

George: what is the pattern of the CG meeting? Is it Wednesdays at 16UTC?

zhengxu: once per month, wed or thu? I don't know

avneeshsingh: 4th wednesday at 16UTC

George: I could send an invite

zhengxu: some CG members want meeting in Asia time zone
… tricky with one meeting per month

wendyreid: FPWD of EPUB 3.3 Core and RS on January 12
… and notes for overview and multiple rendition satellite spec
… a11y task force is working on the revisions to the a11y docs
… a11y 1.1

<Ralph> FPWD transition request for EPUB 3.3 and EPUB 3.3 Reading Systems

wendyreid: met last night, close a few issues, talked about FXL a11y

Dave: on testing, we've so far failed to find a Test Champion
… so I started writing some tests for the reading systems part of the spec
… there's a pull request to the repo now
… I'm uncovering some annoying details

Tzviya: the WG needs a Test Champion

wendyreid: anyone have someone who could contribute time and files?

Dave: I made an EPUB with the ACID2 test; the results were "entertaining"

wendyreid: I can contribute what I can

ivan: you cannot be a testing person!

tzviya: any pubs run automated tests?
… can we do things with Igalia?
… it's a totally different world

ivan: that's the problem

Dave: I doubt we could come up with enough funding to pay a testing org
… testing XML support probably isn't high on anyone's agenda
… but much of EPUB is covered by HTML and CSS so maybe the task isn't as hard as we had thought

Tzviya: maybe you'll update us next meeting
… great progress

tzviya: BG update?

liisamk: we've been working on building on conversations from TPAC workshop
… focusing on business issues
… so use cases can be handed off to CG
… planning to do another one day 2 90 minute sessions in March
… we're gathering topics for that
… we need to keep working through a11y
… especially with Japan
… interest has ratcheted up
… and start to discuss advertising in EPUB

Daihei: just had conversations in Japan this week
… digital publishing has been expanding in Japan
… in addition to manga, fxl requirements for books such as children's books and cookbooks and self-improvement
… they see that publishers want to publish more works
… slumping of print book sales
… take advantage of people buying ebooks more and more
… the FXL ebooks are not necessarily representing loyal to actual content of layout
… these difficulties should be overcome
… publishers want to discuss that
… in the web people can see graphic books easily
… next week on 12th there will be PBG Asia/NA meeting
… and also audio/video enhancements

tzviya: there is an advertising BG in W3C
… there was a lot of controversy around the TAG election related to advertising
… and privacy
… I'm not sure what you mean about advertising in EPUB
… whether it's based on user data, or just fixed ads, you need to be very aware of the privacy implications

George: in Japan, I was told that the dept of education has issued a11y requirements; don't know when it will go into effect
… is the industry aware of that?

Daihei: yes
… and some of the industry organizations want to take an important role to be responsible for discussing a11y
… public libraries are calling for accessible books
… so publishers need to pay attention to that

Ralph: tzviya was being careful about the ad tech community
… for example, some of the ad tech folks have asserted that HTTPS interfere with their ability to do business
… is there a different way to address the underlying issue, and address in a different technical way
… one of the respondents in the thread on the AC Forum was Robin Berjon
… he's been very good about trying to surface tech issues

<tzviya> read Robin's article for NYT Open https://open.nytimes.com/how-the-new-york-times-thinks-about-your-privacy-bc07d2171531

Ralph: there's some confusion about the term "publishers"
… what part of the community is "publishers"?
… if you think there's input you can make, I would encourage us to be clear about what part of the ecosystem you are talking about
… we're not the "publishers" they're talking about, methinks

ivan: that issue of terminology came up in one of the TPAC sessions
… they use "publisher" to refer to those who create advertisements
… they also use "decentralization" in a non-standard way

tzviya: if you can access the AC forum, you should read the thread to be informed

liisamk: my intention is more to just see if there's interest in having a conversation
… and help people to understand this is way complicated and fraught

tzviya: I put a link in IRC to Robin's article about privacy and advertising
… it's very informative

Ralph: the conversation about advertising is an appropriate one to have in the BG
… we need business cases and needs to inform technical choices
… we created an improving web advertising BG to discuss this

tzviya: CG meeting is 2nd week of month

<Zakim> avneeshsingh, you wanted to comment on one pice of EPUBCheck

avneeshsingh: we have a report and request for funds

tzviya: do we approve the release for funds? there's some work to do for last milestone

avneeshsingh: last piece of public API

tzviya: delayed due to circumstance

Zheng: Next PCG Jan 13 (Wed) 11am EST

tzviya: we're requesting the release of funds a bit early
… for next release in Early February

avneeshsingh: there's a bit of a cash flow issue

<tzviya> +1

<ivan> +1

<BillKasdorf> +1

<dauwhe> +1

<liisamk> +1

<zhengxu> +1

<Garth_> +1

<George> +1

tzviya: I see no objections; we will release the funds

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 127 (Wed Dec 30 17:39:58 2020 UTC).