Publishing Business Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2018-12-04

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Luc Audrain, Wendy Reid, Dave Cramer, Yu-Wei Chang (Yanni), Wolfgang Schindler, Ivan Herman, Tzviya Siegman, Rachel Comerford, Ric Wright, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, George Kerscher, Ralph Swick, Julie Blair, Avneesh Singh, Garth Conboy, Karen Myers, Julian Calderazi, Laurent Le Meur

Regrets: Jeff Jaffe, Rick Johnson, Caroline Hayes

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain

Scribe(s): Ric Wright

Content:

1. EPUBCheck revision

Luc Audrain: Good news from epubcheck group
… DAISY was chosen and their goal was to fix the existing problems.
… The result is EPUBCheck 4.1 which is now available.
… Many bugs are fixed, but it does NOT contain any support for EPUB 3.2

Ivan Herman: https://www.w3.org/blog/2018/11/epubcheck-intermediate-4-1-release/ -> blog on epubcheck

Luc Audrain: But we still need to raise more money for supporting the 2 years of development.
… But we are only halfway there.
… Note that we still need to carefully check that EPUBCheck is performing correctly

Dave Cramer: Some issues are still being tracked, e.g. CSS etc. but its validation is in good shape.

Luc Audrain: we are expecting a beta release of EPUBCheck by the end of February 2019
… This will be a very important message for the publishing sector.
… Note also that we need to continue the message about the “sunset” of EPUB 2

2. epub 3.2 rec track question

Luc Audrain: Work is continuing in the WG about finalizing 3.2
… There are folks on the WG who are both in favor of 3.2 and those opposed.
… A document of pros and cons is being prepared. It may be too early to take a firm decision

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17CyIqihtjjzT7Abbcq9sSqLNqLGKs2cuXdg4DcFulGY/edit?usp=sharing

Dave Cramer: Some of you may have noted that Makoto-san is concerned that approving 3.2 may result in features being dropped that are actively used in Japan
… I have been very busy creating tests for EPUB - from OEB 1.2 up to the present day
… I could use some help with this

Luc Audrain: Is this something the CG could help with?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: +1 to Dave’s approach

Dave Cramer: Yes, we will be discussing this in the Thursday meeting

Luc Audrain: The concern of (some of) the Japanese is that they have added features to their variant of EPUB and that these features may be dropped in 3.2

Tzviya Siegman: I do not understand the concern about the “loss” of features. This seems overblown
… it will be easier to present and test if the spec is a formal spec

Luc Audrain: Note that publishers don’t wait for standards - they use what is being supported.

Dave Cramer: The way to address this gap in understanding is through clearly specifying and testing the spec
… The concern of the Japanese is that the WG will drop features that are currently used by the J publishers
… Including the title of the package…

Tzviya Siegman: …that are not supported now

Avneesh Singh: Note that testing is good, but requiring all these features and testing will delay the ratification of the spec.

Dave Cramer: It was not my expectation that we would delay the spec. We are gated at by the completion of the spec and the readiness of RS to consume it

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Rec-track seems less important than getting the buy-in from the fringe people who are hesitant about adoption EPUB 3.x

Garth Conboy: Not obvious how a RS that supports 3.0.1 WOULDN’T support 3.2
… So we shouldn’t wait for EPUBCheck to support 3.2 Instead, we should support and bless 3.2 ASAP

Luc Audrain: Seems that the key is for the CG to be testing the spec and the WG will continue to work on extending the spec (e.g. WP and audio)
… But we need to be consistent in our messaging about the status and direction of EPUB 3.2

3. Audio books

Luc Audrain: Is there any news about audio support for eBooks? From the TF?

Laurent Le Meur: There are some action items from the WG about audio-books, but it does not seem to be a priority for the WG

Wendy Reid: Note that next week’s WG meeting will discuss audio-books
… And the WG is also taking on the packaging and how it relates to audio-books
… The WG believes it understand the parameters of the audio-book problem, but the TF lacks input from the audio book publishers.

Avneesh Singh: I don’t think the spec is a major issue though there are some issues related to packaging
… Our top priority should be getting feedback from the publishers

George Kerscher: The audio publisher industry is not that technical. So getting direct input and support may be difficult
… So perhaps we need to engage those groups in a different fashion that is not WG-traditional

Laurent Le Meur: I will be talking tomorrow to a group about audio-book support in Europe
… I intend to report back to this group about their concerns etc.

George Kerscher: Note that we are not asking them to change their base production approach, but more about the metadata

Tzviya Siegman: Is there a list of publishers etc. that we are contacting/working with?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Agree that the audio-publishers are not particularly technical. They would be happy to provide “requirements” but are not about implementation
… So are approach would need to be different

Luc Audrain: Note that there are a lot of audio-book usage in northern Europe. We should make sure to reach out to them

Dave Cramer: Less concerned with discussing the technical aspects with publishers as ensuring that we are meeting their actual needs.

Garth Conboy: Don’t disagree with dauwhe but we need to also need to rope in both the vendors (Google PLay, etc.) but also the producers

Laurent Le Meur: We also need to convince the producers that metadata etc. is valuable in both their workflow and to their end-users.

Luc Audrain: Agreed. Note that we are supporting ONIX, which is very valuable in this regard.

4. Visual Narratives

Laurent Le Meur: Yesterday we spoke at “Les Assises du Livre Numérique” about EPUB as well as audiobooks and there was some significant interest
… I believe we need encourage the CG to develop the use-cases and requirements
… Then it will be reasonable to involve the WG more deeply

Ivan Herman: https://www.w3.org/community/bdcomacg/ -> BD/Comics/Manga CG

Tzviya Siegman: It is important to note that are getting more interest from Japanese publishers so we need to ensure that we loop them in

Laurent Le Meur: Agreed. Yesterday I did speak to some of the publishers from Japan about this, particularly manga
… But we also need to loop in American publishers re comics

Luc Audrain: We recently had a workshop in Japan about visual narratives and this is likely to produce some useful outcomes

Karen Myers: I have looked in to some comics production in the US, but if you have additional leads that would be useful

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Comixology is owned by Amazon but it is something of a black box from the publishers perspective

5. TPI Members, Meeting with the W3C AB in NYC

Tzviya Siegman: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Ri-6KT5Kfg5HPYzKTKvlWUswi4dgz3UGd7jrpivxXE/edit?usp=sharing

Tzviya Siegman: There will be a meeting of the advisory board of the W3C soon. One of the evening meetings will be focused on topics relevant to this group, esp. w/r to TPI Membership.

George Kerscher: Note that one of the options for TPI members is to join the business group member

Karen Myers: Note that we have completed a new campaign to encourage those TPI members

Luc Audrain: We need to recognize that our meeting-support for Asian members is not good (due to the time-differences among other issues)