EPUB 3 Working Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2020-09-25

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平), Toshiaki Koike, Ivan Herman, Wendy Reid, Masakazu Kitahara, Zheng Xu (Jeff), Avneesh Singh, Garth Conboy, Matt Garrish, Brady Duga, Bill Kasdorf, Romain Deltour, Juliette McShane, Hadrien Gardeur, George Kerscher, charles, Charles LaPierre

Regrets: Dave Cramer, Tzviya Siegman

Guests:

Chair: Wendy Reid, Dave Cramer

Scribe(s): Garth Conboy

Content:

Wendy Reid: Minutes coming soon; approve after meeting.

Wendy Reid: https://github.com/w3c/epub-wg/projects

Wendy Reid: Over view of Projject Structure

1. overview on projects

Wendy Reid: Github Project Management Tool
… E.g., Publication Schedule
… EPUB Testing & A11Y Revision
… Questions?

Romain Deltour: Is the Project View accessible?
… Issues may be better, allow screen readers to see project details.

Wendy Reid: Needs explorations; can’t link issues from other projects. Use tags & labels.

Avneesh Singh: There were issues with editing in the Project View.
… If it’s the high level view mainly for Chairs, might be fine. Issues are A11Y.

Wendy Reid: Yes, it should be that way.
… That’s where status will be.

2. document structure

Wendy Reid: Document Structure now.
… Lots of satelite docs historically.
… How do we do this for EPUB 3.3?
… What’s Matt thinking?

Matt Garrish: Bring the core specs into one specification.
… Much of what we did in 3.1 headed this direction, but we didn’t do the combination. Do it now.

Ivan Herman: See for info, the official deliverable list of the WG

Matt Garrish: Simpler with less documents to maintain should be a feature.

Matt Garrish: See: https://mattgarrish.github.io/publ-epub-revision/epub33/spec/epub-spec.html

Matt Garrish: Should help our publishing process.
… Combine front/back matters, then get to one main document.
… RS Requirements could be broken out.

Matt Garrish: See: https://mattgarrish.github.io/publ-epub-revision/epub33x/spec/epub-rs.html

Matt Garrish: Should they be merged (or not) with Content requirements?
… These are a couple of simplification options.

Ivan Herman: Reference to charter above.
… MO and A11Y are separate. Why?

Matt Garrish: Consolidate the core, MO is not required — so keeping that secondary may make sense.
… Could also combine all.

Wendy Reid: Agree on MO. Maybe A11Y wants to be combined in to the main spec?

Bill Kasdorf: Likes RS requirements being broken out.
… Likes A11Y being part of Core.
… If RS Reqs would be broken out, how much content needs duplication?

Avneesh Singh: A11Y was broken out to support independent versioning and branding.
… European A11Y Act — A11Y will be presented thee — being standalone helps.

Bill Kasdorf: I’m sold by Avneesh that A11y needs to be its own document

Charles LaPierre: Agree with Avneesh.
… Though A11Y doesn’t want to be step-child.
… A11Y might want to move faster.
… Still “born accessible” but separate might be better.

Matt Garrish: A11Y is version independent. So broken out makes sense.
… This not overly complicated. Possibly to break RS Conformance.

Zheng Xu (Jeff): A11Y broken out from RS Conformance makes sense.
… Difficult to connect with MO, provided by publisher.
… Good to draw some line — A11Y for EPUB and A11Y for Content.

Ivan Herman: Understand what Avneesh was saying, but maybe there is some middle count.
… We clearly don’t want folks to ignore A11Y reqs.
… When we publish at the end, could we renumber the A11Y to match (at that point in time).
… So it feels like a complete set.
… Just like MO.

Avneesh Singh: EPUB A11Y can be applied to all EPUBs (2.x … 3.x).
… Tying to EPUB 3.3 could create wrong impression.

Matt Garrish: Yep, get that. Started at 1.0 as it started later.
… like CFI too.
… It would be strange to jump to 3.3
… There is an A11Y spec a section dealing with RS A11Y.

Avneesh Singh: Just for information EPUB reading system accessibility protocol is in action at www.epubtest.org

Bill Kasdorf: Might not be good to tie A11Y to EPUB to support updates on their own timelines.

George Kerscher: WCAG 1.2 was specifically about HTML, extracted and expanded in 2.0.
… We reference other specs in our specs (HTML, XML), could we do the same with the A11Y spec?
… Reference the latest version.
… Incorporaste A11Y metadata, So, don’t include the spec into the 3.3 integrate/reference the then current version.

Avneesh Singh: george, it is already referenced.

Zheng Xu (Jeff): Not crazy.
… MO should be seperate. A11Y covers voice over — different from MO.
… Should provide something to be more accessible for 3.3. Consider RS implementations.

Matt Garrish: EPUB A11Y Spec may wind down in view of “silver requirements”? Thus, broken out may make sense for that reason.

Wendy Reid: Worth digging into further.
… We do have a TPAC meeting with APA/Silver folks.
… Should discuss schedules.
… Can we come to some decision re Document structure. Matt’s proposal seems a good start.

Ivan Herman: Ivan and Wendy are mind melding!
… Can we have consensus on what I put in IRC?
… Need to map Charter Docs on to the above.
… Can we resolve with this?

Proposed resolution: we will publish the following documents: EPUB 3.3 Content, EPUB 3.3 RS, Accessibility 1.1, Media Overlays 3.3 (Ivan Herman)

Ivan Herman: +1

Brady Duga: +1

Bill Kasdorf: +1

Brady Duga: Have faith in Matt — content/RS split needs to be understood.

Matt Garrish: +1

Wendy Reid: +1

Garth Conboy: +1

Charles LaPierre: +1

Toshiaki Koike: +1

Masakazu Kitahara: +1

Zheng Xu (Jeff): +1

George Kerscher: +1

Avneesh Singh: +1

Avneesh Singh: 1.1 for A11Y is fine for now.

Resolution #1: we will publish the following documents: EPUB 3.3 Content, EPUB 3.3 RS, Accessibility 1.1, Media Overlays 3.3

3. FPWD

Wendy Reid: FPWD next.
… Stake in the ground for the project.
… Advantage of starting with fully implemented document.
… Just the result of restructuring could be FPWD.
… Or we could tackle some issues in the FPWD.
… Typos would be easy!
… Any other pet issues?

Ivan Herman: FPWD is what starts the whole IPR procedure. IPR seems like it’s not a huge issue with EPUB.

Avneesh Singh: FPWD of EPUB A11Y — 1.5 year effort on ISO version.
… ISO version improved readability.
… We should bring those enhancements into the EPUB A11Y version for FPWD.

Ivan Herman: Sounds Good. For 1.1.

George Kerscher: When we port the ISO version back, we re-W3C the should’s, must’s, et al.
… Maybe slightly worried about what ISO would think.

Matt Garrish: ISO version work would be inspiration for W3C/IDPF version.

George Kerscher: Always an expectation that spec would evolve within W3C.
… George is feeling good! :-)

Wendy Reid: Any other issues that should be included FPWD? Maybe new Core Media types? Image, audio, video?

Avneesh Singh: OPUS was in queue since IDPF days.
… Not enough browser support in the old days — things likely changes (for the better) by now.

Wendy Reid: OPUS looks generally supported.

Ivan Herman: New media types could be a technical low hanging fruit.
… Would such mean each RS would need to handle these new Media Types?
… Backward compatibility, oh my!

Matt Garrish: Core Media type may not directly drive Core support — but one does audio need to do ‘em all. So, yes, an issue.
… Do we have a policy on adding types? Need to all be royalty free?

Zheng Xu (Jeff): Support is not really a “force” to support. Up to implementor. Recommendation rather than force.
… unsure we really need such Core Media types specified.
… What about fallbacks?
… Need to consider work with epubcheck too.

Bill Kasdorf: OPUS might be fine as “generally implemented” and we’d be equally early in the spec process.

Ivan Herman: Now we list media types. Can we just refer back to HTML5?
… and be off the hook ourselves.

Brady Duga: Really complicated issue. Not one to be resolved today. OPUS needs special handing on iOS/macOS. Not a rathole for today!

Wendy Reid: Made one big decision. FPWD published by TPAC? One a month out!

4. Resolutions