Publishing Business Group at TPAC — Minutes

Date: 2019-09-19

See also the Agenda and the all the slides of speakers

Attendees

Present: Dave Cramer, George Kerscher, Gregorio Pellegrino, Rachel Comerford, Bobby Tung, Yu-Wei Chang (Yanni), Junko Kamata, Luc Audrain, Jun’Ichi Yoshii, Romain Deltour, Murata Makoto, Avneesh Singh, Laurent Le Meur, Alan Bird, Jeff Jaffe, Naomi Yoshizawa (吉澤直美), nakao, skk, naoto, yoshiba, kiyoto, tomikura, ryosuke, hoshino, motoi, kinpachi, jungamo shinyatakami, shu, toshiakikoike, Wendy Reid

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain, Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平)

Scribe(s): Jeff Jaffe, Rachel Comerford, Romain Deltour, Laurent Le Meur

Content:

Dave Cramer: we still need a scribe

Murata Makoto: Hi!

Luc Audrain: Thanks Jeff

Luc Audrain: we need scribing particularly on questions/answers after presentations

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): Coffee break is very short because we have so much material to cover.
… introducing Murai-sensei

Jun Murai-sensei: Good morning everyone
… re ing W3C Keio
… also Host of TPAC meeting in Japan
… welcome to Fukuoka
… nice venue
… G20 financial ministers also met here
… their optical fiber is still here
… talk about publishing
… I am known as an Internet engineer
… but also a UNIX engineer (originally) working on internationalization
… much POSIX work is my work

Dave Cramer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun_Murai

Jun Murai-sensei: Japan cares about text and language
… most of computer science design started in English
… I accepted proposals in many languages
… POSIX (UNIX OS) and Internet
… RFC 822 said English ASCII only
… but I said to accommodate other languages
… History started by proposing change in standard for internationalization
… accepting multiple languages
… implementing diversity of languages
… LONG history
… Japan uses different languages and culture
… we contribute to internationalization, accessibility, and diversity
… in 94-96 W3C worked on Olympic/Paralympic
… Olympic website
… started Web Accessibility
… Tokyo Olympics in 2020
… Florian and Elika will explain to the AC this afternoon
… Vertical writing progress
… demonstrates diversity
… not only for Japan

Florian Rivoal: CSS Writing Modes progress
… from the CSS WG
… reaching the level of W3C Proposed Recommendation
… on its way to the W3C Director
… will get AC review
… this powers Vertical text in Japanese
… many others did the work
… bugs have been fixed
… after AC review it will be a formal W3C Recommendation
… complete at the spec level
… Japan has been major driver
… more work to do
… thanks to the broad Japan team

Jun Murai-sensei: I appreciate efforts
… and your (Florian) efforts)
… also in publishing
… important
… users on internet is almost everyone
… big change in 30 years
… our contribution goes to everyone
… publishing work for everyone
… really appreciate your efforts
… Thank you
… enjoy Fukuoka

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): Good work in CSS
… thanks to Jun Murai
… thanks to APA for their support
… also Kodansha, Shueisha

Luc Audrain: Thanks to APL
… I hand it to Dave Cramer (Hachette) for the EPUB update

Dave Cramer: I co-chair EPUB CG with Rachel Comerford
… working on EPUB since 2001
… in 2017 IDPF merged into W3C, starting the publishing work in W3C
… 2 big problems
… noone was using EPUB 3.1
… no support from EPUBCheck
… The CG wants to make things better
… so we looked at these problems
… preserve EPUB 3 content
… Makoto-san and Garth Convoy (Google) recommended that we take 3.1, but make it backwards compatible with 3.01 - widely used in the world
… so Matt Garish and I rewrote the spec
… what to keep from 3.1
… what to roll back for compatibility
… bug fix
… The CG was open to all interested parties
… anyone in the world
… not only members
… 61 people participated
… a community effort
… In May we published EPUB 3.2 as a W3C CG spec
… approved by Publishing BG
… EPUB check needed to support EPUB 3.2
… formal validation required by retailers
… EPUBcheck had been dormant - relied on volunteers
… but we ran out of volunteers
… Rachel, Luc, on behalf of W3C wrote an RFP to fund the work
… Much money raised
… Daisy funded to actually revise EPUBcheck
… released in April; same time we finished EPUB 3.2
… Avneesh here from Daisy
… great accomplishment of whole community
… work together to find problems, do the work, get feedback, achieve the results
… What is different about EPUB 3.2?
… strict backward compatibility (with EPUB 3.0.1)
… but core web platform (e.g. CSS) is evolving
… instead of writing profiles, we are pointing to HTML spec, CSS snapshot
… widely available components
… so EPUB has evolved with the underlying technologies
… Web Fonts external to package, WOFF 2.0
… What does this mean?
… If you are creating EPUB 2, you need to move to EPUB 3
… accessibility benefits
… If you are using EPUB 3, you don’t need to change anything
… please use EPUB check
… use progressive enhancement
… If you can’t use EPUB 3, come talk to us
… we want to fix that.
… Thank you

Luc Audrain: Thank you Dave
… slides will be available
… skip to Romain Deltour

Romain Deltour: Brief update on EPUB check
… what’s done, what’s next
… I work for Daisy
… mandated to take over development and maintenance of EPUB check, by the BG
… we needed to make up for 2 years lost time
… dealt with pending issues and bug fixes
… most important was implementation of EPUB 3.2.
… synchronized release
… January to April was testing phase
… released in April; ready for spec
… A community effort
… many comments, feature requests
… discussions in CG
… Japanese publishing community noticed a new rule
… created errors for Japanese content
… pushed issue to CG
… made “error” into “warning”
… here are main objectives
… foundational work to make more maintainable and reliable

Avneesh Singh: congratulations Romain for driving EPUBCheck to its current state!

Romain Deltour: improved system for GH issue tracker
… revamping test suites (>1000 tests)
… more readable
… Next: carry on cleaning and refactoring
… API interface
… simplify for 3rd party tools and workflows
… clean up 10 years of work
… then add new checks
… text and audio
… not historically done by EPUB check
… public website for project
… landing page
… download the latest
… Thanks

Luc Audrain: Introduce Takami-san from Kadokawa

Shinya Takami: I am Shinya Takami
… two questions
… EPUB 3.2 and EPUB check; situation in Japan
… second is future requirements
… existing epub files had errors due to a TOC violation

Romain Deltour: the EPUBCheck issue mentioned by Takami-san: https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/issues/1036

Shinya Takami: we requested a change to the behavior of epubcheck and the publishing groups cooperated
… we do need to say that the Japanese epub files are wrong and there are many many wrong epub files in Japan

Yu-Wei Chang (Yanni): This TOC issues happened in Taiwan, too. Thanks for the EPUBCheck community.

Shinya Takami: in 4.2.2 this issue is now marked as a warning instead of an error
… making this good for the Japanese market
… the next question was a feature request for the future of epub3
… order specifications of the nav doc; fallback spec of image elements in OPF (manga contents would be packaged more simply); Attribute spec of “linear=no” in OPF (capability extension for dynamic advertisement)

Luc Audrain: PBG call for EPUBCheck fundraising
… thank you to the companies that have donated to EPUBCheck
… this is ongoing development
… fixing existing bugs
… updating to 3.2
… and making it an easier to use tool for future generations
… wear your tshirts with pride!

… link to EPUBCheck fundraising page: https://www.w3.org/publishing/epubcheck_fundraising

… we will switch now to the work of PWG
… and future standards
… I’d like to introduce Wendy Reid, co-chair of the PWG

Wendy Reid: Thank you
… today I’ll speak about the audiobook specification
… this work began 2 years ago
… as a part of the conversations around publishing on the web
… last year we formed a task force around the use cases about where they differ from ebooks
… we focused on listening, portability, navigation, accessibility
… when we talk about listening we talk about it consistently without interruption
… potability means downloading, streaming, offline
… .navigation means knowing where you are
… and accessibility means enjoying content no matter ability
… in the process of developing the spec we looked at 4 new use cases
… they are supplemental content, table of contents, synchronized media, and packaging
… supplemental content is content outside of the audio recording that creates a more full experience (ie images)
… table of contents is rich html which gives people the ability to know where they are
… synch media synchronizes audio and text or text and rich media for the purpose of accessibility
… packaging would allow for simplified exchange for B2B
… and user downloads
… this summer we’re reaching out to more stakeholders to find additional needs and use cases
… and soon we will be moving to candidate recommendation and looking for implementors
… questions?
… the target date is the summer of 2020

Luc Audrain: and now Laurent Le Meur from EDRLab

Laurent Le Meur: Thank you
… EDRLab is a consortium of publishers, accessibility organizations, technical orgs, etc
… we are working on many things open source, including the Readium software
… on accessibility, we are working on bringing more accessibility to reading tools
… Readium is totally open source and a native toolkit for developers of reading applications
… we want to support ebooks, comic books, manga, and audio books the same way
… we want to support more than epubs
… pdfs, wpubs, and anything else
… we also want to mobile (ios, android)
… and on the web
… readium has a client and server part
… which can be the same system or separate
… this is how we can process epub files or web publications
… we have dedicated some time to implement audio books on our platform
… we can demo it from our platform outside of the presentation time
… we are using the “readium web publication”
… our own standard
… we think it will be easy to create a W3C candidate recommendation from the readium standard
… we would like to port to web publications as soon as next month
… and are seeking a partnership
… this would start with mobile/ios
… and then be on desktop and the thorium reader
… and then finally be support by readium web (online only)

Hiroshi Kawamura: I’d like to show a presentation of an actual Japanese textbook
… then present the situation of ebook accessibility in Japan

Romain Deltour: [demo, in japanese]

Hiroshi Kawamura: the narration is associated with the text hilighted on the screen
… the narration here is normal speed, can be increased x3
… or lowered to 80%, e.g. for learners of new languages
… it also supports vertical writing
… in Japanese-language textbooks, vertical writing (right-to-left) is a standard practice
… we can also change the color combinations, for instance for low-vision users or dyslexic sudents
… the idea is to adapt to the users’ needs
… the text font size can be adjusted
… and the content reflows
… someone said it’s very difficult to narrate maths expressions [cue demo of maths content]
… there are both a text description and an audio description
… the EPUB Media Overlays allow us to associate human narration to the text
… or the text can be read by TTS
… this is a very important feature to support scientific content, relying on MathML
… about Born Accessible Publishing in Japan
… the overall legislation situation: ratification of the CRPD and the Marrakesh Treaty
… they are in place in Japan
… but what about actual content?
… reasonable accommodation: there is always a solution to read, readily available solutions
… now that we are hearing that EPUB 3.2 is ready, and EPUBCheck is available, and the ISO standard for EPUB Accessibility will soon be in place
… I would like to point out that ~400 million USD are spent every year for public procurement of text books in Japan
… accessibility of textbooks is a basic human right issue
… it’s a top runner of accessible publishing in Japan
… conclusion: there are challenges, but policy development is the key
… technical development is no longer a barrier
… we need a change of attitude (copyright holders & publishers), fixing holes in the copyright law, and standardization of accessible and open affordable protection measures (like LCP)
… thank you!

Romain Deltour: [up next: Avneesh Singh, DAISY Consortium]

Avneesh Singh: my presentation is about born accessible publications, what are the global regulations for accessibility, and are born accessible publications a reality?
… my presentation is based on information from DAISY members
… DAISY members are organizations around the world, committed to accessibility
… mainly 2 bodies: UN Convention for People with Disability and Marrakesh treaty
… in the US, section 508 applies both to web sites and publications
… all the agencies must ensure that published content is accessible to people with disabilities
… applies to publishers, but also to universities
… they need to ensure their publications are born accessible, or provide alternative content
… in Canada, there is the Accessible Canada Act (2019), and the government allocated 22 million CAD to help organizations and publishers to implement the regulation
… in the UK, public sector bodies regulation (2018), say that web sites and mobile applications need to follow the WCAG principle (operable, understandable, perceivable, robust)
… in the EU, the groundbreaking European Accessibility Act is in place (2019)
… must be implemented in 2022
… it not only requires publishers to release born accessible content, but the entire chain to provide accessible products (including e.g. reading systems, retailers, etc)
… in Australia an inclusive publishing initiative was created
… in the developing countries, Brazil has a regulation
… if a print-disabled user requires a publication, the publisher must provide an accessible version
… in India, People with Disabilities Act (2016), electronic products for everyday use must be following a universal design
… specifically about EPUB 3, a community of experts for the government identified EPUB 3 as the recommended format
… these are the views of the regulations. Are our efforts for Born Accessible giving the expected results?
… in the US, born accessible is a reality in higher education
… they are in fact competing around the accessibility features
… in Italy, the LIA Foundazione is established with the publishing industry, over 24,000 titles are available
… in Brazil, born accessible is a reality in K-12, more than 60 million receive books in EPUB 3 or braille.
… in the UK, it is a reality for simple publications like novels
… in India, the government publishers have started providing textbooks in accessible EPUB 3
… in Canada, funding is in place for born accessible to become a reality soon
… in France, Hachette has taken the initiative for born accessible publishing, following the roadmap of the government
… these are countries were it is working
… EPUB 3 released in 2012 initialized this movement for Born Accessible publications; good progress over the past 7 years
… it was thanks to a collective effort
… I’m confident that in the next decade, we’ll born accessible publications in many other parts of the World
… thank you!

Romain Deltour: [up next: Makoto Murata, for JEPA]

Murata Makoto: hi, I’m Makoto from Keio University
… going to talk about standardization of EPUB Accessibility
… it started in IDPF, then moved to W3C, and now we’re trying to standardize it at ISO
… the goal is to make it clear if the publication is friendly to visually impaired persons, dyslexic persons, and so forth
… if we can properly identify which publications are accessible, readers can choose what they can read
… for instance, last year a blind colleague of mind bought ebooks made of rasterized images, without knowing
… what is the current status in ISO?
… we’re working on a Draft International Standard
… we just finished the comment disposition
… we just need one more ballot
… the goal is to have an International Standard
… a Draft International Standard is somewhat in between CR and PR for W3C
… the ballot requires 6 months, then 2 months of comments. We’re hopeful we’ll have an International Standards in approx 9 months.
… we received a number of interesting comments from Japanese publishers and content providers
… one such comment was about external vs. embedded metadata
… some prefer embedded metadata as it cannot be detached from the publication, some say that external metadata is better as it is easier to maintain
… we think both approaches are feasible
… we’re investigating this in the EPUB 3 CG
… Kawamura-san presented a diagram with highlighted text and synchronized audio
… this is a difficult use case, and shows limitations of SVG and CSS
… Prof Murai required an extension of SVG, we can also count on Florian’s input
… we’re working on solutions
… thank you!

Jun’Ichi Yoshii: publishing is not just books; magazine … are in scope, we can expand content
… in the world of publishers, we need to take attention on who created content and for whom.
… in the future we’d like to demonstrate what web publishing can do
… important to have know who publishes info because it’s ok in this case to publish stories about Loch Ness etc.
… such info carried by NYT would be a problem.
… there are maybe lots of techno that can be adapted for our needs. This is why we participate to the W3C.
… important for us to maintain what we have built as publishers, also important to look at new markets and technologies. Provide a service that can bring joy to users, and be a trusted publisher. For that superb technology needed.
… I encourage publishers to be more interested in new technologies. The print media industry should be more connected to other domains to transform our industry
… in the past the print publishing industry made a product, no way to transform is later. Changes are already happening in other medias (news, magazines), it it the trend of the industry.

Laurent Le Meur: this perspective is important.

Jun’Ichi Yoshii: thanks.

Laurent Le Meur: next presenter, Shin Mizushima, Kadokawa

Shin Mizushima: I’m the responsible for product management division. raw material, printing, ebook also.
… next generation is there via paper + digital content.
… kadokawa has catched up with trends, 30 to 40.000 books transforms to ebook form.
… 4.000 new books per year, ebook put immediately on the market also.
… we way package many times, packages are important.
… the user chooses btw paper or ebook; he chooses the package.
… before users has to choose btw Vinyl and CD (2 packages), now digital distribution (new package)
… many input received for speakers already.
… there are some limitations; some contents can only be expressed in ebook, other in paper only.
… a publishing company must find new values and present that to the readership.
… the business has to be sustained for quite a long time.
… therefore we have to balance production cost and selling price.
… most present people come from IT sector. The cost structure is specific in the publishing sector.
… viable business -> the product must be offered at a reasonable price -> reduce cost of reading material -> build huge inventory.
… if we’re selling physical, printing & transport is a cost. Not true in digital form.
… we first produce the paper book then transform to ebook -> lots of work.
… to convert books to disability friendly ebooks is difficult.
… it’s an issue of processing technology.
… we need to progress on the processing technology.
… as a publisher we must continue to make efforts for better methods and techno. We already sell book and ebook at the same time.
… both forms have advantages. ebooks -> many in the same device; but without battery, no reading. publishers will continue producing both.
… but the readership will not increase.
… I’m an exception: when I buy a book I buy it in 2 forms, paper and digital.
… thanks.

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): next presenter is Tatsuya Igarashi, from Sony Corp, chair of w3c media entertainment IG

Tatsuya Igarashi: there are similarities btw digital publishing and media entertainment.
… delivery; both are networked media, thanks to the raise of internet
… more print media is going online; we see a shift from download to streaming.
… in media entertainment at least; it may hit publishing also.
… in the past there was a need for dedicated devices for media and publications, now shift to mobile devices.
… we also see a move from mono-media (text, audio or video) to rich media (interactive, immersive). Even with a bluray.
… w3c is now working on new techno, expression of media is evolving, this will change the way entertainment is delivered.
… let’s study common aspects of business
… open standards will make possible to deliver content to different users, they free us from older industry standards.
… more content is enjoyed through browsers, thanks to w3c technologies.
… many IT giants are starting services similar to publishers’ services.
… thanks to their dominance of advanced technologies
… the limited number of giants, with their delivery platforms, makes so that publishers must build on techno also.

Laurent Le Meur: Ex. Disney goes directly to consumers, with new platforms.

Tatsuya Igarashi: thanks

Luc Audrain: last speaker is Florian Rivoal

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): Florian is involved in the CSS process, also consultant for japanese publishers.

Florian Rivoal: EPUB 3.2 and EPUBCheck are great achievement, now what?
… epub concentrates on the document. When the spec say “the document must be like” we need a document validator.
… on the web is was the same not long ago. the html4 spec was like epub3 -> how the doc must be.
… the web has changed, now the spec style is focusing on the software.
… in html5 we don’t use a document validator, we test the browser.
… when we updated EPUBCheck we discovered that some content previously sold was in error.
… if we focus on the software, we can know if the user can read the content, which is more useful.
… s/was/were
… if we want to use epub for the long term, we’ll have better interop if we focus on what the software needs to do rather than what the content needs to be.
… after EPUB (not after EPUB 3.2)?
… epub is separate from the web because the browser does not read it natively.
… the web is the convergent point of many industries
… but the web must learn from publishing, it is not good enough for presenting books and magazines.
… when we work on web publications, we don’t improve the web.
… therefore we don’t really need a Publishing WG, but we need publishing people in all sorts of groups.
… CSS writing mode was pushed by the publishing industry. Most web (browser) engineers are from the west but with common work with experts from the east we can achieve that.
… by participating to groups about typography, packaging, media, accessibility we’ll make the web better.
… thanks

Jun Murai-sensei: do you think browsers may replace reading systems?

Florian Rivoal: DVD player became VoD applications, and now VoD services are in browsers.

Murata Makoto: in the past I was tempted to create a variation of CSS for intl, experts of the W3C said “we’ll deal with it”. It was a success.

Wendy Reid: we should be more involved in CSS etc. However I also think there is a place for the Publishing WG.
… we are not that far away from the browsers, we can move a little bit closer.

Florian Rivoal: my take is that the publishing people must be careful discussing with other folks.