Publishing Business Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2018-06-05

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Avneesh Singh, Luc Audrain, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Ivan Herman, Dave Cramer, Ric Wright, Wolfgang Schindler, Bill McCoy, Jun-ichi Yoshii, Laurent Le Meur, Tzviya Siegman, Garth Conboy, Rick Johnson, Bernadette Shade, Paul Belfanti, Rachel Comerford, Dan Sanicola, Brian O’Leary, Bill Kasdorf, Jens Klingenlhöfer, Leslie Hulse, Julian Calderazi

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain

Scribe(s): Brian O’Leary, Dave Cramer

Content:

Brian O’Leary: New member: Bernadette Shade, ACM

Bernadette Shade: ACM begins to publish in HTML, very interested in accessibility issues

Tzviya Siegman: welcome Bernadette!

Ivan Herman: It was a good meeting; thanks to Kobo for hosting
… right path; have to define a manifest; decision that manifest in JSON LD
… schema.org plays a critical role; alignment with it makes sense
… have to do more work with schema.org; add sections on affordances
… long discussion on WP, PWP, EPUB4
… Web Packaging timeline not clear
… PWP may remain conceptual entity for a while
… for EPUB4, may use the same packaging format as EPUB; not decided

Garth Conboy: also closed a number of issues at the end, good meeting, 20+ people, feels like progress

Tzviya Siegman: Ivan and Garth summary is a good one

Bill Kasdorf: notes Tzviya is writing a blog post on the meeting

1. Workshop in Tokyo

Luc Audrain: introduces topic, Tokyo workshop
… Building program, 18-19 September in Tokyo, complex layout focus.
… still under construction, consensus on content (included, excluded)
… cochair include Luc, Florian, Makoto
… take care to ensure diverse program committee. Need more women; solicited Laurent’s input
… working on better representation
… next steps are to push the draft, validation from w3c management, then release to the BG

Bill McCoy: ask for expressions of interest, topics; program committee will review and choose
… program not set, hoping to release in the next month or so
… request for proposals in the next few days

2. Epubcheck

Luc Audrain: Working on an RFP now
… finalize the RFP soon

Laurent Le Meur: need the conditions for selection; when payment will take place, procedure for getting funding to contractor

Luc Audrain: not precise answers to these questions raised by Laurent yet

Tzviya Siegman: full RFP has not been disseminated, as some reviewers might also bid, creating a conflict of interest
… fundraising is not part of the RFP; will proceed in parallel

Laurent Le Meur: timeline; will there be a delay between start of work, fundraising, payment schedules

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: not sure what delays of payment means. RFP goes out mid-June, likely, with 30 days to respond.
… Request that respondents fill in anything missing in the RFP
… not trying to create a perfect RFP
… once the RFP goes out, funding will be pursued in parallel
… need to know the budget first, before we can finish fund raising

Laurent Le Meur: adds several items that he had raised earlier

Garth Conboy: question is, if we pick a winner next month, will we have enough money on hand to start?
… hopefully, yes

Tzviya Siegman: valid concern, typically in SOW, not an RFP. Not a contract

Luc Audrain: almost finished; people will be able to react.

Tzviya Siegman: RFP almost ready to go, next few weeks (mid June)

Luc Audrain: any other concerns? [none]
… Next topic: thread about promoting EPUB3 adoption
… asks Liisa for guidance

3. promotion for EPUB3 adoption

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: after the WG meeting, discussion of regional uptake of EPUB3
… does the regional variation help us think about how to get EPUB adopted?
… does it tell us where to focus

Bill Kasdorf: mention the work of the external coordination TF, lagging with other events, but this could be addressed there. Valid?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: +1 to BillK

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: great to take on

Bill Kasdorf: BISG is doing this kind of work in the U.S. market
… try to do something more systematic. Surveys, etc.
… defers to co-chairs, not on the call.

Luc Audrain: with respect to survey: some sort of geographical adoption figures?
… notes some data available in France. Ben Dugas (Kobo) previously presented EPUB2/3 update

Bill Kasdorf: start with informal sounding out of other organizations, followed by surveys or other data-gathering efforts
… likely that other orgs may not have data
… conversations to get some data, not wait for survey results

Tzviya Siegman: in Brazil, little acceptance of EPUB 3, but we had a participant at the F2F meeting, good possible contact

Luc Audrain: should we measure production, acceptance, or delivery of a format
… basis for a white paper?

Ric Wright: explains interest in white paper

Luc Audrain: willing to support/contribute to white paper. How to promote, where to promote

Ric Wright: no quick answer. Used to have some promotion options within IDPF. New options like EPUB3, 4- do we make choices on what to promote?

Laudain: any ideas from the group?
… could it be on the W3C blog?

Bill Kasdorf: timing of promotion vs. development of EPUB 3.2 - what do we talk about?
… should we do that promotion while educating about EPUB 3.2

Ivan Herman: W3C blog not the ideal channel. Readership is different
… do not expect that those people are the right targets
… may want to seek out partner blogs or other syndication channels
… does not feel the W3C blog alone is enough

Brian O’Leary: Bill_Kasdorf could add this as an article in Publishers Weekly

Luc Audrain: Quoting a mail from Hadrien Gardeur:

“IMO this can be re-phrased differently:

I don’t think such a timeline is sending any mixed message.”

Luc Audrain: Goal is EPUB 3.2 adoption; work toward that have resources on the web to support web publications, then move to EPUB 4

Garth Conboy: seems right to me

Jens Klingelhöfer: outside world has not heard a lot about EPUB lately; good idea to stage communications

Luc Audrain: timing around release of EPUB 3.2
… use other channels, outside of just w3c

Bill Kasdorf: +1 to “it’s about EPUB 3”

dauhwe: EPUB 3.2 not solving ‘urgent’ problems. Keep message around EPUB not EPUB 3.2

Garth Conboy: adding happy pills to what dave said
… the focus should be on epub 3
… I do think 3.2 solves urgent problems
… and our current spec, 3.1, has zero adoption
… it may not solve tech problems ,but it solves perception/standards problems

Luc Audrain: BillK, you proposed that a coordination task force would look at geography
… the road map task force should work on these messages
… and hopefully epubcheck would be in better shape for 3.2

Bill Kasdorf: I agree with Luc re roadmap TF doing the messaging

Luc Audrain: this roadmap should take this into account and propose communication
… that’s why it’s in the BG
… and we could work on preparing the messages
… we could also prepare a list of newsletters and communication channels we have in publishing around the world
… what do you think?

Dave Cramer: +1

Tzviya Siegman: +1

Ric Wright: +1

Wolfgang Schindler: +1

Bill Kasdorf: that’s a good idea

Jens: +1

Bill Kasdorf: in our coordination task force, we’ve identified lots of organizations

Luc Audrain: I agree for the road map task force to take this action
… during the time of 3.2 work and epubcheck, during the next month, until the end of the year, I’ll work on white paper
… and a list of news channels
… with your help, Bill_Kasdorf
… Ric, could you contribute?

Ric Wright: I’d be happy to

Luc Audrain: the easiest way to contribute is to participate within the road map task force
… in June, I will prepare a task force call
… any more comment on that subject of EPUB3 adoption
… Bill_Kasdorf, do you identify a specific deliverable about geographic adoption?

Bill Kasdorf: I need to consult my co-chairs and have a June meeting for that task force, before we can identify deliverables

Luc Audrain: it doesn’t have to be in June, but we need to start to gather information
… liisamk, does this discussion help?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: yes, thanks!

Luc Audrain: any other business?
… so let’s end the meeting. Thanks!