Publishing Steering Committee Telco — Minutes

Date: 2018-06-29

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Rachel Comerford, Jun-ichi Yoshii, Tzviya Siegman, Dave Cramer, George Kerscher, Ivan Herman, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Rick Johnson, Garth Conboy, Bill Kasdorf

Regrets: Luc Audrain, Bill McCoy

Guests:

Chair: Liisa McCloy-Kelley

Scribe(s): Dave Cramer, Ivan Herman

Content:

Jun-ichi Yoshii: join pbgsc

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: start with Dave’s topic?

1. EPUB 3.2

Dave Cramer: we are finishing up, some discussion of the last minute things
… opus as a core media type
… the question is how does the process work now
… per charter any change must be approved by the BG
… I want a conversation on how we would go forward
… in W3C parlance we should have a wide review, shout from the desktops, etc
… what would we do in a BG?

George Kerscher: we are not operating under an IDPF license
… we should use a process of W3C would be appropriate
… trying to follow as much as possible a w3c process would be o.k.
… a public review period, and we respond to all comments that may change something on the spec
… once that is done, we could go to a vote of the CG than it could be submitted to the BG for approval

Garth Conboy: +1

George Kerscher: this models the W3C process, and sounds good to me

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: you think that the vote should be in the BG?

George Kerscher: yes

Tzviya Siegman: the w3c process includes a wide review for i18n, privacy, security, etc

Dave Cramer: that is the rec track process

Garth Conboy: I would say no, make lots of noise, but this is not rec track

Bill Kasdorf: we do not have a general principle
… . we want to socialize before we finalize
… we should (not formally) aggressively disseminate it to get comments
… I think the CG is charted with finalized it and the BG approving it

Garth Conboy: I believe Makoto requested a 2 months review cycle, which sounds me as a fine idea
… it is good summer reading :-)

Bill Kasdorf: that is certainly an adequate time for people to comment…

Dave Cramer: I would ask for a formal vote on the CG to go for wide review
… at that point it is not yet a BG vote
… 2 months wide review, we will respond all comments

Garth Conboy: +1

Bill Kasdorf: +1

Dave Cramer: . at that point we will ask for a blessing of the BG

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: +1

Rachel Comerford: +1

Ivan Herman: I am ok with that

Jun-ichi Yoshii: +1

Ivan Herman: let’s be prepared for comments coming in that if we model w3c process then we will also need proof of implementations
… I don’t know if we can do that
… I am sure that there are some people who I won’t mention who will make this point

Bill Kasdorf: I’m not sure if that will happen

Ivan Herman: let’s just be prepared

Garth Conboy: we set out on this to do this work more closely aligned with IDPF process in maintenance mode
… but this spec is bringing things in line with 3.0.1, and there are tons of implementations
… Google Play books, kobo, apple… you can make the case the entire spec is implemented

Ivan Herman: that’s fudging things, but yes :)

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: what do you mean by fudging?

Garth Conboy: I don’t think you can point to a single implementation that does everything

Ivan Herman: w3c allows that–it’s feature-by-feature
… 3.2 adds things that are not in 3.0.1
… we must be prepared for such comments
… what we are doing here is still sort of the idpf process
… so if we are careful on the public message that we are not talking about w3c process
… that may help

Tzviya Siegman: I’m not sure if you’re familiar with testing, but I can show how we do the testing for w3c specs, with automated processes and documentation
… we’d need to create tests etc

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: when we say wide review, do we want to use the international coordination body to help?

Bill Kasdorf: yes, that’s appropriate

Dave Cramer: we can use the language of the CG process, which actually controls us
… we are just doing some optional thing
… I would try to avoid rec-track language in this communication

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: George, Garth… how’s the timing based on that thing we shall not mention

Garth Conboy: the copyright attorney has approved language in the current spec with joint copyright, and the appropriate trademark
… he doesn’t see a problem with proceeding

Dave Cramer: sounds like we have a rough plan. Cool!

Garth Conboy: it’s a smooth and polished plan :)

2. language around fundraising for EPUBCheck

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: did anyone look at the rough levels?

Tzviya Siegman: BillM was going to write the draft language for the fundraising
… if we don’t have fundraising we can’t respond to the RFP
… so if anyone else can write copy like this, please help!

Rick Johnson: the other thing I mentioned last week…
… a few of us who know our companies will be contributing
… a statement from those people about money already being committed will help

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: good idea

George Kerscher: I agree with Garth

Tzviya Siegman: I agree with rick’s comments, but we won’t have a website without someone to write the copy
… any suggestions on who could do that?

Rachel Comerford: I have no experience, but I can put my creative writing degree to work :)

Bill Kasdorf: I can endorse Rachel’s editorial skills :)

George Kerscher: this is pretty straightforward. I can help

Rachel Comerford: thanks george!

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Rachel and George, if you can get started, it’s easier to edit than write

Bill Kasdorf: Since I”m not on the agenda… I’ve made some progress with external coordination task force
… I mentioned last time we’ve had a spread sheet of organizations in various parts of the world or interest groups
… with the name of the task force owner
… the BG was interested in getting that spreadsheet and using it for RFP and fundraising
… most folks were fine with that
… would the BG send this out, or should the individuals contact the people they already know?
… does that sound good?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I think so
… Luc is on our taskforce

Bill Kasdorf: just a progress report. When the appeal is drafted, we can help send it out.

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: can we double back on fundraising?
… Rick, you mentioned that it would be good for people to make committments to get started
… can anyone get such a commitment before the PBG call next week?

Rick Johnson: I’m working on this with the core source team to get the top people there

Rachel Comerford: i can get such a commitment

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I can’t promise anything

Garth Conboy: I’m 98% sure, but whether I can say something by next week I’m not sure

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: do we expect light attendance on Tuesday?

Bill Kasdorf: even if we finalize the copy on Tuesday, we should wait until the next week to send stuff out

Tzviya Siegman: I don’t think we’re likely to have copy by Tuesday
… we need a few weeks to get the website ready
… we can talk about fundraising and say we’ll have a website in a few weeks

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: we just talk about it on Tuesday, and ask for public statements

3. Audio Task Force @ WG

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I wasn’t a part of the conversations about the audio task force
… did that work come up as a requirement?
… should we start it in the business group to get requirements?
… my concern is that kobo driving this as a quickly advancing part of the business might not get all the requirements
… and might create a side spec

Garth Conboy: there are two audio task forces. one is synchronized media, and the other is audio books
… the idea is for audio WPs to work just as text WPs would work
… it has gotten a lot of initial interest and participation, widely from atypon to google to kobo to readium

Tzviya Siegman: audio TF: https://github.com/w3c/publ-wg/wiki/Audiobooks-TF

Garth Conboy: what is going on now is figuring out how to encode audio books in the current wp spec
… I don’t want to slow down the momentum in the WG TF
… I know how screwed up audio delivery is, so I hope this helps

Tzviya Siegman: I agree with garth. I forget who proposed the tf, it came up at the F2F
… the main idea is that audio seems to fit into WP right now, and we wanted to get that started
… it seems all the reading systems are active in the task force
… this won’t address synchronized media, but we want to be compatible with that

George Kerscher: the TF is focused on putting audio spec into WP, and it seems to be going well
… I think the requirements are there
… there’s no synchronized media in that audio spec
… and Avneesh is quick to remind me it’s audio with navigation
… my concerns
… 1. the audio industry needs something on a tighter schedule than w3c process can provide
… 2. In epub 3.2 with media overlays, if we don’t have the text but have a nav doc, you have an audio book with navigation
… but I don’t think the industry sees that as viable
… so I don’t know what we should promote
… and MO EPUB 3.2 audio books should be easily converted to WP audio books

Ivan Herman: to add to what was said
… from WP point of view, the important point is whether it is appropriate for audio books
… we want to be sure we’re not missing anything

Ivan Herman: experiment: https://github.com/w3c/wpub/tree/master/experiments/audiobook

Bill Kasdorf: re george’s concern about timing for the WG getting to REC
… that seems to be a best practices thing
… should BISG do something?

Rachel Comerford: it’s not on the list for best practices

Garth Conboy: responding to George, what we have with MO in epub 3.2, but that’s for synchronized text and audio, but I can’t see that gaining traction in the short run as audio books
… but in the general audio book space, there’s no sync
… and the audio rights may be disconnected from other parts of the book
… I think WP can string together audio files, and it could be a boon for publishers in time

George Kerscher: you know that with MO you don’t have to have text, you can have just audio and nav, and it’s legitimate

Garth Conboy: yes, I know that
… that’s a valid point. Do we want to encourage that? it’s an interesting question

George Kerscher: if we don’t think that MO is a short-term solution for the industry now
… we should make that decision
… then we need to figure out something that would meet that need, and it could be an accelerated implementation of WP audio books
… knowing it could change as the spec becomes more mature

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: we’re in this place with a business expanding RIGHT NOW
… whatever interim solutions will settle down
… the people joining the market will be smaller and smaller
… it’s just how do we get audio with nav out there

Ivan Herman: going back to liisamk’s question
… the new version of WP in draft will be out in one or two weeks
… this will be very different from previous versions, due to having manifest serialization, schema.org, etc
… at some point we should have the BG look at this
… we’ll need wider feedback
… and that would include an experimental WP audio book
… which might answer your concerns

Tzviya Siegman: the business question comes in
… there’s a sync media group, what WP is doing is just audio+nav
… maybe we should accelerate this, after BG review
… you don’t have to wait for REC to implement

Ivan Herman: you should implement before REC :)

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: this should be added to the BG agenda
… nobody on the business side of supplying files seemed to know about this, or think something wasn’t working

Garth Conboy: some of the excitement is kobo and us and readium in the position of ingesting lots of audio books, and know it was a mess
… and we hope that WP could clean up the mess
… we want more involvement from the BG with prototyping etc

Tzviya Siegman: Luc was interested in this, but didn’t have the bandwidth to lead the TF

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I’m concerned about hitting the marks we set up about how we organized all the groups, giving people the opportunity to participate at all levels

Garth Conboy: Indeed!

4. agenda for next week

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: do we have an agenda for next week?
… RFP for epubcheck and fundraising and web site, and commitment for funding
… epub 3.2 on track for wide review this summer
… international coordination with both of those things
… talk about audio task force
… and requirements for handling missing pages from print
… how do we start collecting these issues, and how do we develop best practices around them

Bill Kasdorf: luc wanted to report on road map task force

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: anything else for next week?

George Kerscher: I would like to get onto the SC agenda a discussion how we transition our IDPF temp members into W3C