– DRAFT –
Publishing Steering Committee

previous 12 August

Tzviya: Mateus has stepped down from PubCG chair; his job responsibilities have grown

Salon

Digital Publishing Salon - Notes [Wendy, 30-Sep]

Tzviya: we'd like to follow up on actions
… we have areas to standardize, to collaborate, and to explore
… your feedback?

Bill: I am amazed by the report; it's a masterful job
… distilling the complicated and wide-ranging discussion into such a report is quite an accomplishment

<wolfgang> +1 to Bill

Tzviya: thanks to Mateus' project management skills!

Ivan: I'm looking at the areas to standardize
… a general feeling I have is that in contrast to what we did in the Publishing WG and the EPUB WG we should probably aim for smaller and more focused groups
… the Publishing WG was trying to re-do the whole world and that's one of the reasons it became difficult to manage
… e.g. digital signing and content verification is one item that is a problem for publishers and therefore has their interest
… it is a relatively well-specifiable goal and therefore easier to represent in a charter
… [a dedicated group] for that is a better way to go

Avneesh: we have discussed these ideas for years
… is our objective to float a charter? if so, I'm nervous
… if the objective is to float ideas in the community and see where there is most interest, I'm more comfortable
… if only a few people are passionate I don't think we'd be ready for a WG

Tzviya: there is already discussion in the CG about some of these; e.g. digital signing
… it would take real effort to get it to something that is charter-ready
… personally I think it would not be a good idea right now to create multiple groups
… perhaps we could do something like what the CSS WG does; create different things (modules) related to Publishing
… I'm not too concerned about having different documents we are working on as long as we figure out what goes into a charter
… I do think it may be a good idea to be a little slower to charter but am concerned about losing traction

Liisa: we've talked about forming a "counterfeit task force" to look at what's happening on the ground that is requiring us to work on this type of validation
… I have offered to lead that and hope to get it off the ground in the next month
… Daihei and I have talked about driving some of the BG participants there to help with requirements
… I'm realizing that it's a bit daunting to anticipate months of conversation before the problem can be solved; this is a problem we need to solve now

Liisa: and I'm having trouble finding the agendas for CG meetings

Tzviya: as a publisher, I want my original version of a book to be the only one available for sale
… I think we have a fairly good idea of what's happening
… it shouldn't take months of discussion

Ivan: we need a bit more than what we have now; to go to a WG we need incubation to outline what the solutions may be
… incubation doesn't have to produce a ready-made specification
… something documented along the lines
… that takes a few months with people with the necessary background knowledge, not a year
… but we need that before going to a charter
… I'd like to go through all four of the standardization points too

George: the CG has announced task force(s) on accessibility
… the cadence that the chair sets for a particular TF is really important
… if the TF chair sets a monthly cadence it will take longer than if the TF chair sets a weekly cadence
… a weekly cadence gets people more committed to a goal
… I'm not sure if content verification is a WG thing; it might be a note
… a best practice might have immediate impact on the industry

Wolfgang: TF meetings go out via the W3C Calendar
… I get notices twice; that's a bit weird
… I'm ready to help set up the Counterfeit TF

Liisa: I'll reach out to you and we'll figure out how to get something set up

Bill: the work in the CG really happens in the task forces
… there was a CG meeting on Wednesday and the A11y TF met on Thursday
… you should be getting those notices
… the CG meeting is mainly an update on what the task forces are doing

Wolfgang: absolutely correct
… we need the TF reports for the CG meeting
… we get those from the A11y TF and Education TF

BillK: both of those TFs are quite well populated

<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to talk about note vs working draft

Tzviya: I can also help get the Counterfeiting TF started if you want
… on George's comment about a note, it can start as an editor's draft and eventually go to a WG if appropriate
… if there's a potential solution out there, let's document it

Tzviya: digital books that can serve multiple modalities came up multiple times
… using media queries and different style sheets for different media vs reflowable
… is there interest in taking this up?
… this is kind of like responsive web design, but for ebooks
… e.g. a style sheet for small screens and a different one for large screens
… this doesn't need a WG

Ivan: right; the technology is already there

Tzviya: or serving one layout to some reading systems and reflowable to others

Ivan: multiple renditions

Tzviya: we don't want to re-address multiple renditions but do we want to look at this further?

Dave: the HTML way of doing this would be different stylesheets
… one stylesheet could present the content as reflowable
… sometimes with javascript tricks
… who would use this?

Ivan: combining fixed layout with CSS so that you could use media queries seems a challenge
… I'm skeptical that reading systems would accept this
… multiple rendition didn't make it but in a sense the question might be why not, and how might we improve things to make multiple rendition work?
… in the CG the idea of multi-lingual books was raised again
… that led to the question of multiple renditions again
… I wasn't around when multiple renditions was worked on so I don't have those scars but maybe it's a way to move forward

Bill: getting FXL and reflowable from the same HTML strikes me as a way to solve a11y challenges

George: is it a non-starter for a publisher to sell multiple versions of a book?

Dave: it happens

Tzviya: that's what often happens with FXL
… there will be a FXL version and for some books there needs to be a reflowable version for something

George: so it's possible that at the time of purchase people could select one or the other?

Liisa: there's no retailer who supports that as an option
… you can set up multiple SKUs, multiple versions, multiple price points
… but most of what happens in the market is that people point to what they think is the optimal experience in the venue
… and deal with support issues

Tzviya: managing the workflow is terrible from all perspectives

George: ok. the same questions are being asked in the context of braille

Tzviya: in the library space there's more flexibility in what metadata users can see

Liisa: do we know where we want to try to continue this discussion?
… is this a CG thing or a BG thing?

Ivan: I can't really separate the two in this case
… the CG will discuss technical things without the business cases; that's bad
… the BG will discuss business needs without the technical possibilities; that's also bad
… we have to have joint task forces

<Ralph> +1 to joint activities

Tzviya: serialization, delivering multiple content in the same publication
… this could involve updating the content standards
… this would involve buy-in from the publishers
… e.g. Great Expectations delivered one chapter at a time
… the way this works now in the retail space is that the chapters have to be delivered as separate EPUBs and also as one EPUB
… we should be able to do this with metadata; purchase the whole file at once with timed releases

Ivan: it's not only metadata
… it's the whole workflow from the publisher to the reader
… the e-stores should be ready; they have to build in a mechanism to add chapters each month

Liisa: they do updates now

Ivan: they update the whole book

Liisa: Daihei and I are seeing, particularly in the Japanese manga space, they are trying to release early versions of chapters at the same time they go into magazines to combat piracy
… we're going to be talking about that in our November BG meeting, hearing from folks in Japan
… that may be a place to pick up information on what is happening out there now with serialization

Bill: it's also a case where subsequent content hasn't yet been created so it can't go into the initial package
… I can see this as a very interesting use case for evolving content in general

Tzviya: building on that, all of the retailers allow for updates now
… e.g. releasing chapters monthly
… the retailers' concern is losing annotations
… when an update is released if the metadata says "this includes chapter 2", no retailer wil lhave an issue
… but if [a customer's] annotations are lost, that is a problem

Ivan: I was surprised not to see addressibility and annotation issues among the areas to be standardized
… I'm not sure that EPUB CFI solves the issues
… if we move from XHTML to HTML, which we know we'll eventually have to do, at that point CFI will break down as it is XML-based
… looking at addressibility as a possible new area of standardization is relevant

Tzviya: I think the conclusion of that discussion is that at the point in the future when CFI breaks down we can switch to web annotations

Ivan: yes, but it should be mentioned in this document

<liisamk_> +1 to taking up addressibility

Tzviya: what Wendy put into irc; this is not something publishing can do by itself

Ivan: same for crypto

Tzviya: for crypto we are signing EPUBs specifically

Dave: thinking about how change happens in EPUB ...
… it seems probably the last big-ish change in EPUB's capabilities was FXL
… that happened because a RS implemented something and then we standardized it
… none of us has the millions of dollars it takes to make a cool idea into a reality
… we've been down these roads many times

Tzviya: I'm hearing the discussions are around signing and content verification as they relate to counterfeit books will be taken up in a CG/BG task force
… there's a lot of discussion about metadata
… any discussion about that?

Ivan: like conference proceedings where you want per-article metadata?

Tzivya: author per chapter, or even more granular
… a lot of this is quite accomplishable but we haven't done it yet

Dave: there are HTML methods for these things

Ivan: it's doable but from a technical POV while there are HTML techniques we have discrepancies between the rules in the metadata and the rules in the chapters
… we might be forced to re-think the way the package-level metadata is produced

Tzviya: we're going to have such discrepancies
… almost everything in a11y metadata can be applied at a very granular level if people choose
… any volunteers?
… should we send some of these requests for TF leads and use cases to the CG and solicit volunteers?

<Daihei_> +1 to Liisa

Liisa: maybe the next CG meeting could focus on the Salon results and see if people want to step up to offer expertise or leadership

Wolfgang: it might make sense to have a strategy session in the CG
… go through the Salon report and see what gets traction
… I'd like to learn how to set up a TF

Ivan: there are several here who can and will help with those practicalities

Woflgang: thanks
… it makes sense to join forces between the CG and BG
… if we raise the issue on both sides we may find joint TFs

Tzviya: the next CG meeting is 9 November

Wolfgang: yes; typically the second week of the month

Tzviya: that's a long time to wait; I'm willing to work with you on an email to get interest before then

Wolfgang: good idea

<wolfgang> +1 to Bill

Bill: we can also recruit from outside the CG and BG

Daihei: I agree with Woflgang; the BG can explore from the business side and we are hoping this will be explored more from the technical point of view
… when we have mutual agenda it is very good
… showing that we are on the same page

Liisa: we're drafting the BG agenda for the 25th; we could alter it a bit and introduce these topics to look at what the CG is doing

Daihei: yes

Tzviya: there are other things in the report listed as areas to explore:
… divergence of publishing standards
… communication about standards
… privacy and security education for publishers
… user participation
… rights
… look at the report
… feedback is helpful
… we need to use this report to help plan what we do next
… thinking too specifically about "this is a business problem" or "this is a technical problem" can mean you never get the two together

<wolfgang> I suppose the concept of a use case is bridging business and technical aspects of an issue

Tzviya: things we can get to Rec Track soon are better; e.g. we need to solve the counterfeiting problem
… if someone gets something implemented by retailers that's our goal

Ivan: a more general question: the discussions so far are about EPUB; is that OK?
… we can massage things but with EPUB remaining as the framework
… that's probably OK
… but if we want to go somewhere else we need much more incubation
… we haven't talked about that

Wendy: the Salon notes are not specific to EPUB

Tzviya: anything we do outside of EPUB requires a great deal of incubation
… we don't know where things will go on digital signing
… that's not specific to EPUB
… we need to identify the problems

Avneesh: what Ivan is saying is both a blessing and a problem
… we need one solvable problem to write into a charter
… for other problems we can write drafts
… if we have a generic Publishing WG we won't have to rush each thing
… for the long-term strategy the right way forward is a Publishing WG with a thing we're working on and an open charter to incubate other things

Ivan: in the current W3C that's challenging; the CSS WG has a long history
… I see problems to have such open-ended WGs

Tzviya: we'll have to think about how to propose this to the AC
… I agree we should have goals to work on things that are not EPUB
… in my mind the overarching goal is to slowly evolve EPUB to something larger
… there are a lot of notes on things not specific to EPUB; archiving, annotations, version control

George: NISO has an archiving proposal for EPUB

Tzviya: why are they working on it there?
… it's pretty frustrating

Ivan: we need to followup on this discussion
… should we have an additional SC call before then?

Tzviya: we have our 4th Friday placeholder meeting

Ivan: +1

ACTION: ralph schedule 28 Oct SC meeting

[adjourned]