Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other things...)

Leonard, no, we don't disagree!  Really, I insist! :-)

Seriously though, the PDF of say a Word document is a portable document,
and you and I agree it is a snapshot of a state of that document. But no
one would say that because such a snapshot can be created, therefore the
Word document itself is already a portable document, in fact the raison
d'etre for PDF was and is to enable the portability ("view and print
anywhere" in original Acrobat-ese) that native application files did not
afford.

What I am getting at here is that we may be able to capture a snapshot of a
Web Document - and the result may be a Portable Web Document or just a
plain old Portable Document - but that ability does not itself make the Web
Document merit the "Portable" designation any more than native app files
should be considered "Portable"

--Bill

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com>
wrote:

> > if what you can take with you (inc. cache and use later) is only a
> snapshot of one particular state of that content
> >then the content itself cannot thereby be considered portable
> >
> And here is where we disagree,  Bill.   The ability to capture/snapshot
> one particular state is what people do with PDF today (and have been doing
> for 20+ years).
>
> Leonard
>
> From: Bill McCoy
> Date: Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 2:59 PM
> To: Deborah Kaplan
> Cc: Bill McCoy, Ivan Herman, Leonard Rosenthol, W3C Digital Publishing
> IG, Liam Quin, Ralph Swick, Olaf Drümmer
> Subject: Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other
> things...)
>
> Deborah, I like your definition, it is not only simpler but also uses
> logical composition (that "any aggregate whose content is portable is
> itself portable") . I don't like "display" but that's a fine point.
>
> To try to make this yet even simpler, it's been said that "you can't take
> it with you!". To me the essence of portability is that "you *can* take
> it with you!".  And the "it" means the content that we are calling
> portable... if what you can take with you (inc. cache and use later) is
> only a snapshot of one particular state of that content then the content
> itself cannot thereby be considered portable.
>
> --Bill
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 11:51 AM, Deborah Kaplan <
> dkaplan@safaribooksonline.com> wrote:
>
>> This is an attempt to simplify the conversation, moving away from
>> specific examples and technical terminology. If it just adds complexity,
>> let's pretend I didn't say anything. My basic summary as I think that
>> Ivan's earlier definition of "portable" is just fine. ;)
>>
>> A Web Document consists of:
>>
>> 1. Content, that is
>> 2. Encoded in some format
>>
>> "Content" might mean text, captions, a video, a visualization, data,
>> math,  musical notation, the smell of cloves in a mug of cider on a winter
>> morning.
>>
>> "Encoding format" might mean PDF, plaintext, HTML5, Epub, SubRip, AVIs,
>> OGGs, Flash, WMV, MathML, LaTeX, Sibelius, FragrenceML, etc.
>>
>> Certain elements of a web document sit on a wobbly line between "content"
>> and "encoding format," such as fonts.
>>
>> When a web document is *portable*, that means that the object being
>> described as portable:
>>
>> * Given a toolset which can render all the encoding formats,
>> * But in the absence of any other web resources
>> * Can display its all of its essential content.
>>
>> This is still wobbly, to be sure. For example, as Leonard has been
>> pointing out, caching is a thing. But I think -- staying away from the
>> discussions of specific technological caching solutions, which are relevant
>> to defining "portability," --  a web document which contains enough of its
>> remote content cached to be displayed in the absence of other web resources
>> is portable *only with that cache*. That is to say, the "portable web
>> document" is the web document + cache. A web document that has the
>> potential to be cached but has *not* been is not portable; it has
>> non-portable dependencies.
>>
>> But I think that this should resolve the questions of leaving it to
>> open-ended or too specific. Because we are not addressing specific
>> technologies, we can just say that any aggregate whose content is portable
>> is itself portable.
>>
>> (Again, if this adds more confusion, let's pretend I didn't say anything.
>> I'm trying to synthesize, not add more chaos. I did enough of that in the
>> other thread.)
>>
>> Deborah
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bill McCoy
> Executive Director
> International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
> email: bmccoy@idpf.org
> mobile: +1 206 353 0233
>
>


-- 

Bill McCoy
Executive Director
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
email: bmccoy@idpf.org
mobile: +1 206 353 0233