Meeting minutes
HTML Survey Approval
https://
sue-neu: I will share a link in chat for anyone who needs it
sue-neu: Has everyone had a chance to look at the survey in its current form?
… any objections to it in its current form?
ivan: There are some pending comments, but no reactions to those, so we might be able to add them
sue-neu: Brady, you were saying about "hoping to discover obstacles", any change?
duga: That was in response to your proposal
… I thought it was strange to hope to discover obstacles, I think we will, but we shouldn't hope for it
sue-neu: I can commit it
ivan: Let's do it
[some technical things in the background]
sue-neu: Can we look at the whole thing now
ivan: Yes, we should have the text mostly done
sue-neu: Any objections to using this text for the survey?
duga: Same comment
sue-neu: We can take that bit out, I have no objection
duga: I had a question 4, it might have disappeared
ivan: Add it as a change request
duga: Will take that action item
sue-neu: Do we want to review it in real time or review for a week before moving ahead
ivan: I would like to raise an issue here
ivan: We can deal with it now I think
… there are some new discussions on the issue list
… raised by someone related to Sigil, the latest comments related to an experiment with XHTML converted to HTML, reading systems today had issues
… my reaction, of course there are issues, the RSs aren't build for this
… the question is whether if it's easy for reading systems to adapt to HTML or a major engineering problem
… if we publish EPUB 3.4 with this change, RS will have to change
mgarrish: I was going to respond, they may not realize that we need to go through W3C's process
… we aren't publishing this right away, it's a bit of a pointless exercise, we're still trying to establish this is something to do
… putting the cart in front of the horse
ivan: I don't want to turn this into a discussion between him and me, if you could comment
… the reason I am asking, is it something we need to make clear in the survey?
LaurentLM: Just to comment on Ivan's question, reading systems will evolve, we know that many won't
… there will be fragmentation, there will be RS stuck in XML
… I was speaking with the people from Dolphin EasyReader, the kind of EPUB they accept is a pure translation of DAISY XML to EPUB using special tools.
… no FXL, no interactivity
… anything not tied to simple EPUB doesn't work
… they use a subset of EPUB based on XML
… they don't have a web engine
LaurentLM: I spoke to others, they could, but it would be difficult
… it's going to be a range for everyone, some will be easy, some hard
… we'll have to check many things
… even if we use a web engine
… we cannot say in our communications that RS must evolve, it's not quite that simple
duga: Sounds like EasyReader is going to have a lot of problems, I've tried this in the past without a webview, it's hard to recreate all of HTML/CSS
… it's going to be a limited subset, you can't write something that works with the resources you have for an ereader
… there's two approaches you can take
… something like TTS, you parse the content and get the words out
… you use XML and get the works
… they are just throwing XML parser at it, in ingestion
… arguably you just need to throw in an HTML parser
… XML parsers are common, built into many platforms
… new HTML parser, are they out there, are they common
… if you have to write your own, that's challenging
… if there aren't packages out there to use
… there is all this stuff out there for XML, may not be as much for HTML
… I don't know how hard this will be
… alternately one person pointed out they accept HTML, and they convert it to XML
LaurentLM: You've given me an idea
… at the level of the RS, we could imagine for the future for when XHTML is not supported in the web engine
… we could create a transform for SGML to HTML for the rendering engine
duga: I don't know how other people do this
… for google, it never makes it to the rendering engine as XHTML, it's HTML
… it's already HTML at that point
… it's getting it through the rest of the system
… displaying it in the final viewport, not a problem
… aside from those with custom renderers
… it's getting it to the renderer
sue-neu: For the purposes of the survey, would someone like to write up an intro that explains this is not happening tomorrow
ivan: I think it's a good idea
sue-neu: I can give it a shot
duga: I thought the purpose of the survey was to get people to tell us this?
ivan: Yes, but we are already getting comments like the one we are already getting, it might distract
… just need to clarify that this is not happening right away, there is a series of changes that need to happen
sue-neu: I still think one purpose is to let people know this is happening and to give them a chance to contribute
… there will be more buy-in if people feel they had a hand in it
… having a line explaining this is the beginning of the process
… we want feedback like we got from the Sigil folks, and the expertise
… we need testers!
ivan: I just need the final text so I can create the survey page
sue-neu: I'll add the text, will need it reviewed
Survey Distribution
ivan: On that, I hope I can get it running, it'll be a W3C survey to anyone with a valid email, not W3C account
… the results may not be visible for everyone
… some WBS polls are restricted to Team-, Member-confidential, if it's not possible to make it public, we might have to do some copy-paste to share
… how can we review the responses?
sue-neu: Will we be sending links to this from emails to people we know, organizations?
ivan: The URL will go to everyone in the WG, request to spread it as far as we can
… mailing lists, etc
… we might think about a blog post
… Susan, you know the system for doing it, something short
shiestyle: How can we prepare translated versions?
ivan: Two possibilities, if you do a translation to japanese, I can do a separate WBS form, or we take the text and just put both for each question
… how many translations do we have?
shiestyle: At least we need Japanese version, and Japanese answers
… after translation, I will give the text to Ivan
ivan: Do we want other translations?
… for other countries we said the standard is in English, but we could do Chinese
sue-neu: We talked at an earlier meeting about translations, we didn't want to get into the business of translating
wendyreid: I think we said we don't need to translate into European languages, though translations are harder for Japanese and Chinese
…we can send the content of the survey to members from Asian countries
…and ask them to translate it if they wish, and to give us the answers translated back
ivan: I agree, with the additional thing we need to do for China too
… we should send it to someone on the W3C team to distribute
sue-neu: Wendy, are you able to reach out to them for that?
wendyreid: Yup!
ivan: I'll wait for the final text, I'll get the translation from Shinya, and I'll generate the WBS form, send it to the chairs, the chairs will distribute
Horizontal Review Process
ivan: This is my regular plea for assistance, when it comes time for horizontal review we will be in trouble because getting the reviews done is a long process and waiting too long will be challenging
… we should have people who take on the task of filling out and checking what is required for each process
… sorting through what things apply to EPUB
… I'm happy to take the internationalization one, but we need volunteers for the others
sue-neu: I don't know what horizontal review means, what is the process
ivan: For i18n, accessibility, security, privacy, and TAG, they have to formally review the specification before it goes to candidate recommendation CR
… they mostly have questionnaires we need to fill out, they may log issues
… if it's not completed, we can't move forward in the process
… for example we have some issues tagged to get the i18n group's attention, like one I logged the other day
… web accessibility review is a little different for us because we have a group for that
… privacy and security is more challenging
… we've done it before, but they groups are more active
… it's a good thing, they have experience in things we don't
… more secure or private environments
duga: Question, last time we did this it was very difficult, but it was also the first time we'd ever done horizontal review for EPUB
… would this time just be a diff?
… review the changes, or the whole spec
ivan: Formal answer is its the whole spec, informal, we've already reviewed most of the spec, here is the new stuff
… it will be easier this time
… but I know that the security people are looking at overhauling their process
… there might be more work needed
… the technical point of view, it's already been reviewed
… main area of comments will likely be annotations
TF Updates
sue-neu: Do we have any updates?
… annotations hasn't met yet
… comics?
shiestyle: Webtoons will report next week
… annotations will start next week
sue-neu: Next steps, I'll add a line about the process to the survey, Ivan will send for translation, then Ivan will make the survey, and we'll have a link soon