Publishing Maintenance Working Group Telco

<ivan> Date: 2024-11-01

wendyreid: Welcome Ben

Ben: At Kobo for a long time, I lead the rendering side of things
… we have a few
… I used to be on these calls, then wandered off as I wasn't contributing, but Wendy talked me into coming back
… I may also get someone more technical to join
… I am mostly interested in webtoons and related

<wendyreid> https://w3c.github.io/publ-maintenance-wg-charter/

wendyreid: We are back into rechartering
… there have been some modifications
… content hasn't changed much, mostly wordsmithing
… new scope has webtoons, annotations, a11y, some fixed layout properties, some script/wasm stuff, and a sprinkle of future things
… biggest change is a11y of comics/manga has changed to broader fixed layout
… This will be EPUB 3.4

<wendyreid> w3c/publ-maintenance-wg-charter#37

wendyreid: some outstanding issues

Issue 37: changes in A11y

ivan: To clarify, we have a scope item that says work with the Publishing CG a11y group
… but do we need to add any specific language

George: US legistlation may require some metadata, but no change needed

wendyreid: from Avneesh, there was a comment about looking at gaps
… do we want to consider an update to the crosswalk doc that includes title 2?

AvneeshSingh: We have been discussing with a similar table would be nice or not, we did decide we need to do some gap analysis, but may not want to be a crosswalk table
… With title 2 it may be more of a strategic issue
… It would be good to mention whether we should do more of this work in the CG or add a note from the WG (mention in charter)

George: It would really help adoption to have better communication, not much of a spec issue

ivan: I propose we add something to the charter, but it may not be rec track work
… Maybe in the first block of scopes say we will look at legislation and consider a note or changes to the spec
… for political reasons that is a good idea
… we need links to the various legislation
… can someone send me that info? EU, US, maybe Canada? And mention Japan and India if they have anything

mgarrish: Second Ivan. Getting into legislation is a bad thing to do in spec. It should be notes, etc that aren't on the rec track
… Probably shouldn't be in epub a11y

wendyreid: Agree. I can try and put together some text. We might not even reference them explicitly by name
… exhaustive list will be hard

AvneeshSingh" Maybe just EAA and Title II as an example

Epubcheck clarification

<wendyreid> w3c/publ-maintenance-wg-charter#31

wendyreid: Issue 31, mentioning epubcheck

wendyreid: We will need changes in epubcheck if we change the spec, so we need to refer to epubcheck somehow

ivan: We had it as an extra exit requirement, basically epubcheck must support epub 3.3
… So adding that is easy, but are we shooting ourselves in the foot?
… Will there be enough work on it?
… there are some complex issues for it (annotations)

duga: I don't know what the current state of funding is?
… I remember contributing, and asking organization, but I don't know where that stands

AvneeshSingh: In the previous charter it was there because we had the fundraising going, but at this point I don't see anyone raising funds
… We have reached out to w3c for funding, but no response yet
… There is no guarantee. We need a proper project if we add it as exit criteria
… we could add it as a "will work with the maintainers"
… and send to steering committee

ivan: I did not understand, is there a separate task force

AvneeshSingh: Yes, we made a TF when we joined w3c

ivan: I had no idea

AvneeshSingh: Maybe ask Romain

ivan: Currently I don't think we should add it. Let's talk to the steering committee, etc, first

ivan: I will update the issue

wendyreid: Anything else?

Security addition

<ivan> w3c/strategy#481 (comment)

ivan: Yes, a PR, not an issue
… There is a required review
… The PR has approvals from 4 people, including the w3c security reviewer
… but I like to leave it open for a little while
… This is just some blanket language about security issues that may be raised, we promise to look at it
… I would like to merge, objections?

wendyreid: Not from me

ivan: Ok, I will merge it

TDM

Additional Metadata; out of scope section

George: Is there anything we need to be thinking about with metadata?
… We have the xwalk, is there any other metadata, particularly a11y, we need to add? And is it in scope?

ivan: If you are talking about new metadata vocabs, then it is out of scope
… If you are talking about references, none of those things are normative and can be done now anyway
… so I don't know what we would add

George: So if we want to add values to schema that is out of scope for us

ivan: yes

AvneeshSingh: There are some vocabs we created. Is such an addition of epub domain vocab in scope or not?

mgarrish: We have some metadata, that is what some of the text in the charter is about
… We could incubate something, but not add it to the charter now

AvneeshSingh: Q: if something comes in, can we add it? Sounds like yes

ivan: There is an explicit out of scope section, which includes vocab
… I just copied it from the last version, I don't know why we had it at all
… some make sense (e.g. DRM), but I don't know where that comes from
… we could just remove the new metadata vocabs from out of scope and we are fine

CharlesL2: I agree. We may also need to add more metadata with the new fixed layout work

wendyreid: In mentioning the out of scope section, I agree the new metadata stuff doesn't need to be there
… we also have something about things that impact viewports

duga: I assume that's there because of the pain we experienced from our custom CSS properties and this is our promise to the world we'll never do it again
… I noticed it as well, it's very vague, we can get around it by saying "we needed to", and removing it feels like removing our promise to the CSS working group
… I think we can leave it, we have ways around it when we need it

ivan: Echoing that, that bullet and the previous one was an answer to some people who say we don't need epub at all
… We do get those types of remarks

wendyreid: Anything else?

ARIA issues

ivan: I proposed two to be closed, both refer to dpub aria
… I propose closing because it isn't in our scope
… and not something we want to take over (aria wg has taken that over)

George: Should they go to CG?

ivan: I would think since these are so specific they need to go to aria wg

mgarrish: We propbably need a new tf. I don't think that group can move on those at this point

AvneeshSingh: We have an official liason, what we need to do is create strong use cases so we can push it in the aria wg
… that is all we really need to do

wendyreid + AvneeshSingh: Better to come through WG rather than CG

Educational interactions

George: One attribute was "exercise", would it be good for the cg (wg?) to work on an interactive question/answer mechanism
… clearly it is something the industry needs

ivan: Reminds me of edupub
… I think it would be premature for the wg, it requires a lot of incubation
… The right thing is to get a TF in the CG going, just like a11y group
… then in a few years bring it back to the wg
… But needs some strong leadership

Timeline

CharlesL2: When will we start voting on the charter?

ivan: Need horizontal review, we have 2 (international and security)
… may be a few weeks for the others
… so charter to AC in mid Dec? Or hold to Jan 1
… which means if there are no formal objections, then the new charter would start in Feb

CharlesL2: APA has some potential additions

ivan: The sooner the better, since it is being actively reviewed

AvneeshSingh: I don't expect many surprises