Publishing Business Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2019-09-01

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Luc Audrain, Mateus Teixeira, Karen Myers, Wendy Reid, Dave Cramer, Ivan Herman, Garth Conboy, Dan Sanicola, Rachel Comerford, Avneesh Singh, Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平)

Regrets: Jeff Jaffe, George Kerscher, Bill Kasdorf, Jonathan Greenberg, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Ric Wright

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain

Scribe(s): Karen Myers

Content:

Luc Audrain: Agenda first item is Updates
… there is every two weeks calls with US/Europe and Asia
… we rescheduled call from 17th
… of December
… Thank you, Garth for updating all of the invitations
… we will work this way through the end of this year
… and work with you again for next year [2020]
… Any comment on the schedule?
… the way we want to work is to propose that you identify some business cases or issues you would like to discuss in this group
… we would like to have this looked after by 2-3 people outside of the PubBG calls, and then bring to this call for discussion and resolution
… as there are two calls, there would be emails for consensus calls for the whole group so that all the PubBG members can participate
… That is the first topic
… We are set up with dates for future calls
… We could not look at second topic, short feedback from TPAC Publishing Summit we organized

1. Feedback from the TPAC event

Luc Audrain: Daihei, would you please give us some feedback

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): Thank you for all who joined in the meeting
… and for the help with GTM and irc
… we had a lot of people attending from 9:00am to 12:30pm Japan
… at one time I counted
… around 70 people attending the event, and we originally planned for 50
… we had a full agenda
… and prior to that, having started the conference with Professor Jun Murai
… who started with a comment about this being an historic meeting
… right before that meeting, CSS Working Group announced the vertical writing
… which enables Japanese type or other vertically written language
… it can be made into the web very easily
… so now not only for Japanese
… also traditional horizontal writing for languages
… the real combination for a worldwide, diversified culture
… After that we covered EPUB3.2, Dave Cramer explained
… and the status of EPUBCheck2
… and @ from Kadokawa talked about EPUBCheck for Japan
… so this covered the status of EPUB3.2
… Discussion about AudioBook was organized
… Wendy Reid made a great presentation on the status and how it’s going to a standard
… And Laurent spoke about audiobooks
… another example of publishing at W3C to go to a standard for Rec Track
… We then talked about Accessibility
… DAISY presentation
… and Accessibility in Japan; audio/visual things
… Avneesh explained to a greater extent the global accessibility
… and having difficulties being able to listen to the accessible audio system
… Makoto-san explained about accessibility for ISO standard
… it was very good quality presentations
… Finally, next stage for digital publications content and the business cases
… there were four people who presented
… Yoshii from Kodansha and @ from Kadokawa
… talked about their point of view from publishing industry people
… Additionally, there were two people stating their views from non-publishers
… One, Igarashi-san from SONY, co-chair from W3C Media & Entertainment IG
… he made interesting point that media people could do more convergence
… and finally Florian talked about EPUB3.2
… and after that “after EPUB” situation
… where he would like to have more participation from the Publishing members
… at W3C and others related to publishing industry to join in the CSS, HTML and other web technology groups to expand the horizon of digital publishing, going beyond the EPUB
… that was a 3.5 hour discussion
… and Professor Murai, also a key person at W3C
… he commented that this was a very productive meeting, as well as historic
… he proved the fact
… and he stayed for the whole meeting
… that is a good proof for how the meeting was
… Thank you Luc, all the people from the program committee, and thanks to W3C Keio
… the meeting went very well
… We had attendance from president from Kodansha
… Also president of Shuesha came the night before
… and he sent his key executives
… so there were key execs from Japan and from abroad
… that’s about it, Luc

Luc Audrain: thank you very much, Daihei
… you did a lot of work to make this meeting go smoothly
… Noting that the presentations were done in Japanese and English; slides were translated
… and some people spoke both languages and it was very interesting to be in this place and in Japan
… you have the link to the minutes, which includes links to the slides

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): I will post it and make it open to all the PubBG members later today

Luc Audrain: any comments or questions on this topic?

2. Strategy Call Meeting; Future of Groups

Luc Audrain: for PubBG, there were some points raised
… and once more point for EPUB3.2 to become a W3C Rec was raised
… we need to discuss this again in this group, hear the business view of this
… we will not discuss it thoroughly today
… but we propose that we consider all together
… the link to the document we established last winter
… where we put pros and cons in place
… this is the base document to work on, to think about this possibility together
… and hopefully come to consensus
… this is not about the EPUB3 CG; list is more than 250 members
… this is more about PubBG a question of business opportunity to have a Rec document

Dave Cramer: See PBG spreadsheet on EPUB as Rec issues

Luc Audrain: Question is whether or not you think it is necessary
… We would like to discuss this thoroughly on next month’s call
… Speaking about the way to work in this group
… Are there people here who would be willing to work and rebuild this document
… and build conditions for this group to come to consensus next month?

Dave Cramer: The CG is discussing its roadmap and how we want it to evolve
… we will discuss this one week from Thursday
… we will send out documentation; a new charter draft, over the next few days

Karen Myers: [11 October 2019]

Luc Audrain: if all the people will discuss this, it will be considered an open discussion
… and addressed in future calls, perhaps in the Asian-US call in two weeks
… if you agree with the process, we will open this discussion and have elements to discuss

Rachel Comerford: you mentioned process
… you mentioned comments on the spreadsheet
… what will be the process for making a decision?

Luc Audrain: hopefully I would like to see this group come to consensus
… I have no pre-defined process for that
… It depends upon the various positions, pros and cons
… we will need to establish conditions
… I have no pre-defined process issues on that
… we can also share

Rachel Comerford: I just want to be careful
… when we use the term “process”
… and make sure everyone agreed with the process before moving forward with a decision

Avneesh Singh: I see something missing in the spreadsheet
… how will EPUB change
… also relates to future roadmap
… suppose CG sends us on a roadmap that they think are essential
… but we are not able to move forward on them because they are not yet mature specifications
… let us proceed and make decisions then

Luc Audrain: ok

Dave Cramer: The BG does not create specifications or create working groups
… the BG can offer advice and say yes, we think doing this in a certain way is a good idea
… which is different from writing a WG charter for EPUB
… just want us to maybe think a little bit what’s within scope for the BG itself
… I think much of what the BG can do is to offer advice rather than making binding decisions

Luc Audrain: ok, thank you, good point
… I just wanted to be on queue to remind everyone that last year we did not think it was a good idea
… personally I do not think it’s a good idea
… but we should be clear about what we put inside the Rec Track decision
… I had chance to discuss with Wendy R in Fukuoka
… One important thing is that EPUB should be compatible with the current state today because of business we do in the industry
… that is what BG has to take care about; it’s about advice as you said, Dave
… we have already given some advice on that

Wendy Reid: I said this in Fukuoka
… should a WG, not nec publishing, to handle the work of EPUB3 Rec Track
… because I don’t doubt things will change as we get privacy and horizontal reviews
… what is clear is that EPUB3 does not succeed if it is not backwards compatible
… any charter written must make backwards compatibility a requirement
… the perk is that we have a decade of incubation and implementation
… not like the problems we had with Web Publications where there were not problems identified or implemented
… There is space for the CG
… ideas to get incubated and could be
… rigor of the standardization process will be good in the long run
… industry has made it incredibly clear is EPUB is what they want to work on and what they want to sell

Mateus Teixeira: +1 wendyreid

Wendy Reid: why disrupt a billion industry

Rachel Comerford: +1 wendyreid

Luc Audrain: thank you for this
… I support your vision
… this is an open question
… if there are no more comments now, we can share with PubBG, people who are not here, those who sent regrets and those who don’t come to calls will consider these questions
… encourage everyone to have a look, and to share visions and comments
… For the process, I don’t know how we will do it; hope we have a resolution and good consensus
… not sure if a vote is avaiailable or not; +1 or -1
… but we have to have this discussion

Avneesh Singh: I am still a bit concerned
… the BG question
… can we work together to resolve this

Luc Audrain: Dave, what do you expect from the CG that would help, or need to be synchronized with the BG?

dave: The CG exists to maintain EPUB3
… so we are eager for any feedback on how EPUB is working in the world, what works and what needs to be changed
… We hope a lot of that feedback comes from the Business Group
… At least currently, I am trying to look at where EPUB needs to go, without making a decision on what process is the best way to achieve our goals

Avneesh Singh: +1 Dave

dave: And whether RecTrack is the best way to make EPUB better? I don’t have the answer to that question now
… in short-term I want to focus on the roadmap and how to make the spec better
… and this can be folded into the other question of RecTrack

Luc Audrain: Do we need to be in a hurry for that?
… As Avneesh said, having the CG building a view of the roadmap, and make the BG fully aware of the thoughts
… and not having these discussions before the CG builds something significant
… My question here to you all
… We don’t have to set up time limit
… probably not say we have to take a decision in a month’s time
… maybe two months or end of year, but it would be valuable to come to consensus

Avneesh Singh: The PubBG charter…I don’t think we can do it in one month
… just want to not go into a one-month cycle
… let’s work closely with EPUB3 CG and then determine a timeline

Luc Audrain: I heard Wendy say a Working Group
… if there is decision to go to RecTrack for EPUB
… Wendy?

Wendy Reid: yes, I say this because the Publishing WG charter does expire next year
… I say a WG, because maybe the PubWG is rechartered, or perhaps we charter a new WG
… leaving that open

Ivan Herman: +1 to Wendy

Wendy Reid: because we still don’t know what the future of the PubWG is

Luc Audrain: very good, I think we are on task to build consensus
… thank you very much
… if no more comment, I propose we move on

3. Accessibility

Luc Audrain: As co-chairs of this BG, we are figuring out issues about the implementation of Accessibilty
… and this relates to different countries
… Some countries expect some things to work, other countries expect other things to work
… the work on Accessibility all over the world
… we had this interesting presentation from Avneesh; encourage you to read his slides and the minutes
… In Europe we have this issue; different countries have set up needs, we also have European directive
… we would like to share best practices
… that BG members and publishing industry in general could be more accurate
… .and know what reading system should do
… we think it will help reading systems work in a systemized way
… would be bad to have to cope with different best practices and regulations
… This is something we would like to share with you
… There is a lot of work being done by DAISY, Benetech, others, especially on exposing metadata
… in digital bookstores is also an important issue
… there is good work on what should be explained to book stores
… so customers all over the world have the same way to expose the accessibility of ebooks
… but we also want to have this discussion on implementations and what works and doesn’t

Wendy Reid: Speaking for Canada, we are trying to work on it, too. It’s an international interest

Luc Audrain: we have made some progress on the upstream part of supply chain
… we have EPUB Accessibility standard; we have the ISO one; discussions on metadata
… and also in ONIX to distribute to the supply chain
… and then showing possibility of the books stores, supply chain; and then the reading systems
… We would like the reading systems to be fully synchronized
… would you mind to have some kind of task force on that?

Avneesh Singh: There is the accessibility testing protocol defines requirements
… but it’s in form of a test book not in form of guidelines
… maybe this can be part of new roadmap, to have more guidelines
… we have 5-6 years of experience of testing
… production side
… knowledge base
… @ piece we have chartered the task force
… in EPUB3 CG
… definitely guidelines for reading systems, we could start a TF for that, yes

Luc Audrain: you already have some piece of information, an epub?

Avneesh Singh: yes, a testing protocol

Luc Audrain: is there a pointer, a web site

aveneesh: EPUBtest.org is doing it based on the protocol

Luc Audrain: if people are volunteering for this TF, we should work on it
… good
… next topic

4. EPUBCheck Fundraising

Luc Audrain: we have received some new funding recently
… it’s still a bit more than two thirds
… we still need $50K dollars more
… we would like to relaunch the communications on this fundraising
… several tasks to do
… George identified task
… web page that spoke about the W3C fundraising should be updated. I will take care of that
… EPUBCheck management call, we identified there should be a document to explain the different phases; Romain did this, so please comment on this base document
… it should explain to the industry that it’s not finished
… EPUBCheck is a long-term tool and should be maintained by people in open source, meaning that newcomers
… should be able to participate in the long-term, make it easy to bring new features, improvements
… there are some improvements on synchronization of media, media overlay that needs work
… looking at EPUB3 CG work
… and there will be new check to develop in the future
… it can be done in a way where it doesn’t only depend on DAISY, but also rely on the larger community
… we need some money still; and there is testing work
… meaning EPUBCheck has to be validated. There is huge work from Romain to build a testing suite
… it is being considered to have resources outsourced, so another reason why we need money
… I shared the document from Romain, and the slides Romain showed us at the F2F at TPAC Fukuoka, where he explains how we can open up this development to newcomers
… The slides are in English and Japanese, so good to propagate
… We should think about more communications about this project
… I will prepare a blog post for the relaunch in the next two weeks
… the next time we need to pay DAISY Consortium is the beginning of next year; we are short and need money for the next phase
… Questions or comments?
… good
… We also have this discussion in this group on the long-term
… we would like to identify business cases that are in the market
… we are looking at new business done in new markets
… where web technologies are used but without standards
… that these cases are successful is a hint for how to standardize them for the whole community
… there is a question of competition
… but we know standards also enable good competition in all our markets
… Something we should share here and hope future meetings
… this winter to bring new hints of the future

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): q＋

Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平): after TPAC I had a few discussions with people inside of publishing
… having told them about what next stage of DigPub could be
… some were already engaged in some projects going beyond EPUB
… or they are not necessarily thinking about it
… some staying in print books
… others doing Manga to expand
… the entertainment park kind of ideas
… also including developers, almost like Disneyland on a small scale
… ride with the characters
… a company might have special editions of Manga stories
… or people talking about web publications for children books or for educational purposes
… not only in Japan
… but I spoke with entertainment industry people in US
… SONY omniplex and SONY TV
… they are also trying to go into anime
… nature business but also
… a spin-out of products utilizing publishing technologies
… related to Manga and comics
… we should look into what is going on
… and think through the pros and cons, the technology and creative aspects
… and how it has chances of developing larger publishing business
… that’s what I think we should do

Luc Audrain: you reminded me that we skipped a point
… about engaging with EPUBCG
… we will discuss with Laurent LeMeur about this @
… to get more insights to engage more with this
… creation and development business and perhaps future standard
… we are almost at the hour
… if you have no comments for today
… I wish you a nice day, night, afternoon to all
… and thank you very much for these discussions

Karen Myers: [adjourned]