– DRAFT –
Publishing Steering Committee

<Ralph> previous: 14 May

Action: Ralph figure out the calendaring issue that's annoying the EPUB WG

<Ralph> Tzviya: and ARIA

<Ralph> George: and Locators

EPUBCheck priorities

Avneesh: Starting phase 3 to create a prototype based on HTML validator
… the schemas in EPUBCheck are Now being synchronized manually with HTML validator
… This prototype will explore migrating EPUBCheck to the HTML Validator
… If we move to HTML this will be really valuable and it will reduce cost of maintaining schema manually
… But there is another priority: Implementing EPUB 3.3
… EPUB 3.3 won't be implemented if it isn't in EPUBCheck. But supporting EPUB 3.3 is not in EPUBCheck contract
… the cost of developing the prototype on HTML validator is approximately the same as to support EPUB 3.3
… Main decision: do we want to swap priorities?

Ivan: Does the HTML validator properly check XHTML?

Avneesh: This is part of what we want to determine in the prototype

Ivan: If we decide not to go to HTML 5, my priority is 3.3 unambiguously.

<dauwhe_> +3.3

Tzviya: To be clear, the switch to 3.3 can be done without a cost change but we will still need to tweak the contract with Daisy.

Dave: Switching to the HTML Validator is "nice to have"; supporting 3.3 is a must.

<wendyreid> Proposed: Shift focus of EPUBCheck to 3.3

<ivan> +1

<Bill_Kasdorf> +1

<wendyreid> +1

<liisamk> +1

<tzviya> +1

<dauwhe_> +3.3

<Ralph> +1

Tzviya: We don't need to bring this to the wider group; we will just work with Richard and Daisy.
… We may need other people from the EPUB 3 WG

Avneesh: We will be wrapping up the current phase in two months.
… We will be looking for community feedback at that point
… After two months we will allow another two months for community feedback.

Dave: What's the money situation?

Tzviya: We have almost enough money to finish out this contract, about $6,000.
… We will have to do some fundraising for the $13,000 for the next phase.
… Luc will no longer be able to do this; exploring a replacement for Luc.
… I hope the excitement of 3.3 will make the fundraising relatively easy.

George: If the prototype works for both HTML and XHTML, will that reduce the cost of moving EPUBCheck to 3.3?

Avneesh:  EPUB 3.2 also points to latest version of HTML; we just do it manually at this point.
… In the short term migration to HTML validator won't reduce our cost; in the long term it will make it easier to maintain EPUBCheck.
… So, it would not have significant effect on adding support for EPUB 3.3.

Resolution: Shift focus of EPUBCheck to 3.3

liisamk: Timing questions. We have focused on making catalogs accessible by 2025. This is a big project.
… Should we recommend waiting for 3.3 to do this?
… What implementation do we expect?

Wendy: I don't think 3.2 vs. 3.3 will matter that much for that project.
… The revisions in 3.3 won't make that much difference for most EPUB; maybe more for FXL.

dauwhe: Nearly every existing EPUB 3 file will continue to be a valid EPUB 3.3 file.
… There may be some edge cases that would be relevant, but in general "EPUB 3 is a thing" and these point releases only affect the margins.
… In my company moving from EPUB 3.1 to EPUB 3.2 was easy.

George: New people should start with 3.3 but this should not be an issue for existing staff.

Ivan: Yes, the document is much clearer.

George: So as publishers update their files and workflows, they really should refer to 3.3.
… If their 3.2 or older files pass EPUBCheck, there really isn't a problem.
… But always use 3.3 from now on.

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to mention A11y spec

Tzviya: We have made significant improvements in a11y; plus we have the EPUB Accessibility spec.
… The EPUB Accessibility spec is a significant spec to pay attention to in this work too.

Christina: We are focusing on EPUB 3 in general but not getting too wrapped around the axle on the dot versions.
… The EU wants conformance with EPUB 3 but not necessarily every new or old version.

Avneesh: You have been developing documents that show how we address the EUAA requirements.

Cristina: Yes, the document has been developed in the context of W3C based on existing open a11y standards.
… Document is available on the LIA website.

Ralph: If we were to say wait, we give a confusing message about the compatibility issue. Just focus on EPUB 3.

Cristina: It will be very complicated for publishers to address the backlist. The more we can stress compatibility between versions the better.

<Cristina_> https://www.fondazionelia.org/en/research-and-development/european-accessibility-act-requirements-are-publishing-standards-as-epub-onix-and-schema-org-fully-compliant/

George: I think the page navigation feature in EPUB 3 is a requirement of the EU. That wouild mean EPUB 2 would not be acceptable in the EU.
… Upgrading the backlist to EPUB 3 is advisable.

<avneeshsingh> EU requriements mentions navigation, not specifically page navigation

Tzviya: The legislation itself is very vague; doesn't get into detail like that.

George: I still think our guidance should still be to update to EPUB 3.

wendyreid: Page level navigation--if the content has pagebreak locators in it--is WCAG A.

<avneeshsingh> it is first stage in WCAG 2.2, we will try to push for more page requirements in laternew version of WCAG

Updating IDPF specs on idpf.org with in-place status

Tzviya: Okay, there's still a lot to work out on the compliance issue.

<wendyreid> https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#page-break-navigation

Ralph: Topic: idpf.org domain

Ralph: We took a static snapshot when the W3C took over and that's now what we serve up.
… The web has lots of links to those specs, including a set of specs that have not been worked on for a long time and may not be worked on again.
… What should we do with those specs?
… The proposal from Ivan, Matt, and I is to edit the static snapshot to add a message that "this document is obsolete."
… Our proposal is to do just that for all of those 13 orphan specs.

George: All of the specs that have been updated by W3C point to the new specs.

Tzviya: yes.

George: The specs would still be there if somebody wanted to work on it in the future, correct?

Ralph: Yes.

Dave: We need people to understand the status of these specs. E.g. we don't want folks to think you have to do what the indexing spec says in your EPUBs.

Ivan: I don't think we've put any such header in, e.g., EPUB 3.1. That one should have a header that points to 3.2 or 3.3.
… Those should be added to the list as well.

<dauwhe_> http://idpf.org/epub/31/

<dauwhe_> http://idpf.org/epub/31/spec/epub-spec.html

Tzviya: There are many W3C documents that carry such warnings.

Ralph: Yes, similar status messages should be added to 3.1 and other similar documents.

<tzviya> +1 to dauwhe_

dauwhe: We really owe it to the community to do this.

Updating the Publishing@W3C landing page

Ivan: It is very outdated. It's not clear to me who the target community is.
… The links on the left are very useful to the people doing technical work.

<tzviya> https://www.w3.org/publishing/

<Ralph> Publishing@W3C

Ivan: There are testimonials dating back to IDPF becoming part of W3C that are obsolete.
… What should the message be? Who should we address? What's the target audience for that page?

Tzviya: Does anybody go here? Do we need to even do this?

Ivan: The cheapest and easiest thing to do is to use it as an index page.
… That's not how it was developed initially.

Liisa: This is valuable to people we'd like to have join the community.

<Ralph> Publishing in the "Web and Industry" navbar

Liisa: Having one page that is rah rah about this work is still a good thing, just needs to be updated.

Ralph: Publishing has a prominent spot on the W3C home page; we should use this in some way.

Mateus: Do we have any analytics or other usage information? How high in search index results is this page?
… My gut feeling is there are 3 communities: people trying to find a spec; people interested in the current work; people who might want to actually contribute, feature requests, etc.
… It would be good if we had some data about this.

Ivan: I doubt that we have useful analytics.

<dauwhe_> Yikes. Only top-10 for w3c google result for "EPUB" is https://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/ebook/

Ralph: We don't do Google Analytics but we might have some kinds of access counts.

Tzviya: Agree with Mateus.
… Currently it just looks like a wall of text and isn't helpful.
… Simple intro and very short explanation of what the groups do.

Bill: I like Mateus' structure and what Tzviya just said
… I'd be happy to draft something as a starting point for discussion

<liisamk> +1 to draft and edit via email

Ralph: you're hired!
… Go for it.

Around the Zoom Gallery

Tzviya: The deadline for the videos is July 15. Ralph and I will be developing guidelines.

Short community videos

George: I attended a session yesterday about EPUB that was just terrible. They were businesses threatened by EPUB.

Mateus: Next CG meeting in July will shift to a milestone orientation: specific timelines for TF goals to share concrete outcomes.

<Ralph> Mateus++

<Ralph> Xheng++

Mateus: We hope this will help with transparency and draw in more interest.
… Looking forward to joint meeting with WG to look at how EPUB 4 would fit into the CG's role as incubator.