Publishing Steering Committee Telco — Minutes

Date: 2018-11-30

Attendees

Present: Tzviya Siegman, Ivan Herman, Dave Cramer, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Ralph Swick, Luc Audrain, Bill Kasdorf, Wendy Reid, Rachel Comerford, George Kerscher, Jeff Jaffe, Garth Conboy

Regrets: Daihei Shiohama, Jun-ichi Yoshii

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain

Scribe(s): Dave Cramer

1. EPUBCheck status

Luc Audrain: let’s start
… who knows about EPUBCheck?
… they have reached milestone 1; EPUBCheck 4.1 was released this week.
… many thanks to all who helped

Tzviya Siegman: https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck/releases/tag/v4.1.0

Luc Audrain: we have enough money to pay for phase 1
… I can ask for payment to be made

Rachel Comerford: no objections!

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: it’s OK to pay

Luc Audrain: we will ask DAISY to pay DAISY :)
… fundraising status: we have almost $70k now. We’re still waiting for some payments. Haven’t received this week’s report yet
… let’s keep evangelizing

Ivan Herman: I was wondering if there should be a blog post about phase 1

Luc Audrain: I did a post on w3c blog

Tzviya Siegman: https://www.w3.org/blog/2018/11/epubcheck-intermediate-4-1-release/

George Kerscher: can we prepare something that can be emailed to various groups–BISG, for example
… it wasn’t posted to the PBG list either

Luc Audrain: I’ll email PBG

Rachel Comerford: can you forward the fundraising updates from DAISY so we can see who’s be donating? It will help us track who we should be talking to.

Luc Audrain: will do

2. W3C membership discussion

Luc Audrain: re: membership. Any more about the end of TPI? And the Q of the publishing champion?

Jeff Jaffe: Karen has been working on membership the most
… she’s converted a few more TPI members to BG members
… and some smaller members to full members
… in Japan, we have two large Japanese firms who’ve converted to full members
… in terms of the publishing champion, there were conversations at TPAC about this, but it has not been resolved
… people in Japan asked who it was, and I said “me” for now :)

Luc Audrain: any questions?

Luc Audrain: I had a Q about bringing TPI members to BG members
… if they can’t afford full membership, they can be business members

Jeff Jaffe: when we did the merger, we tried to estimate where we would end up—how many TPI as BG members, and how many as regular members
… our expectation at the time was that TPI would mostly become business members and only a few full members
… we’re probably ahead of expectations
… on full members, but behind expectations on business group memberships
… we even lost some who did not convert to TPI

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: the entry to BG is not easy or obvious
… the email only links to full members
… the publishing home page is not easy to understand
… we should make the steps to becoming a business member more obvious

Jeff Jaffe: that’s great feedback. Can you summarize that in an email to Karen and I?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: will do

3. AB Meeting and publishing meetup

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

Tzviya Siegman: we’re proposing to have a meetup with the AB during the AB meeting in NYC area in January
… doesn’t have to be formal; I’ve started on an agenda
… could just be a conversation with talking points
… we wouldn’t expect people to travel to this

Jeff Jaffe: that covers it
… a few years ago the TAG started having a dev meetup during their F2F meetings
… the AB thought that was a good idea
… we try to find groups in the cities we visit that may be interested in general governance issues
… since we were in NYC, and it’s the hub of publishing in the US, it made sense

Tzviya Siegman: we need a location.

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: we might be able to get a fancy room

Tzviya Siegman: should we say PRH?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: sure

Garth Conboy: is this just AB and publishers, or do we want folks from this group? Who’s invited?

Tzviya Siegman: it would be helpful if you and Wendy and others could be there

Luc Audrain: will you send invitations? Do you want us to bring you names?
… for HBG, our former AC Ryan should be invited

Tzviya Siegman: should we announce this to the BG and the WG? Should it be invitation-only?

Tzviya Siegman: how many seats?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: I can do most anything

Jeff Jaffe: from an AB point of view were are flexible
… in London we had 15 devs, in Berlin we had 200.

Luc Audrain: Alan Bird will be in Paris next week?

Ivan Herman: I think so

Luc Audrain: the questions in the agenda doc are good, important questions

Tzviya Siegman: we’ll need to do a bit more planning.

4. Other general events

Jeff Jaffe: linking the last two topics, AB meetup and converting TPI members
… one thing that I’m hearing about why TPIs are not staying in BG
… while the spec work has transitioned well, like EPUB and WPUB
… it’s not clear the community stuff and the business-focused stuff has transitioned well
… for example the IDPF conference at BEA
… how do we make sure people see the business value of the PBG as a community
… maybe that could be a theme of the AB meetup

Bill Kasdorf: +1 to Jeff. I’ve heard the same comments.

Luc Audrain: it’s true that we haven’t organized an event like that
… in 2018
… should we make something for 2019?
… there’s a digital publishing summit in Paris organized by EDRLab but that’s not w3c
… should we do something in the fall? as we did at TPAC SFO?

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: jeff, to your point
… there was always a level of membership in IDPF, spend a few thousand dollars and get a bit of cachet
… they didn’t go to meetings, there was little involvement, it’s harder to spend the money
… I think it’s a bit of an argument for 3.2 REC
… we talked about a conference a few months ago, and people were largely against it
… are people missing the conference, or the cachet?

Garth Conboy: the cachet question is an interesting one. I thought this would be better with W3C
… re: conference; it’s fine to do EDRLab or TPAC, but that’s not where the publishing community hangs out
… maybe we should consider something at BEA

Jeff Jaffe: I don’t have an answer about conferences
… I was reflecting back what I’ve been hearing
… it’s a good question for the BG

Garth Conboy: Maybe something at BEA would help W3C with publisher member (collection) outreach too.

Jeff Jaffe: I’m just sharing some of what I’m hearing

Bill Kasdorf: IDPF membership had cachet in trade publishing and people who serve trade publishing
… but w3c membership matters more for people outside those groups

Luc Audrain: the EDRLab summit is may or June, which would conflict with BEA
… I agree with Garth that book fair is much more reasonable place for this than a technology event like TPAC
… maybe Frankfurt in the fall?

Bill Kasdorf: +1

Luc Audrain: it’s the biggest fair in Europe
… it’s already too late for May/June anyway
… we should decide in the near future

Bill Kasdorf: lots of US people go to Frankfurt

Tzviya Siegman: +1 to dauwhe

Dave Cramer: IDPF/BEA was terrible

Luc Audrain: +1 to Dave

Ralph Swick: Dave: we shouldn’t just re-create what the old IDPF conference was

Rachel Comerford: +1 dauwhe

Wendy Reid: conferences put a demand on travel
… there’s a lot more we can do in the grassroots
… we can do meetups, tweets, articles
… we could have a meetup in Toronto

Dave Cramer: +1

Luc Audrain: +1

Rachel Comerford: +1 wendyreid

Ivan Herman: +1 to wendy

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Some people liked BEA
… perhaps we should have a presence at existing conferences
… and then focus on meetups
… we could send one person to EDRLab
… we could have one person at BEA in some other track

Wendy Reid: +1

Luc Audrain: +1 to liisamk

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: one person at Frankfurt. Telling people that w3c is where the work is happening

George Kerscher: we at DAISY are having great success promoting EPUB
… and W3C adds credibility to the standard
… at AHG in Denver two weeks ago, huge awareness of EPUB was building
… we have CSUN coming up, where we have several presentations
… in the disability community we’re doing really well
… I don’t see those people getting into the PBG, but we’re engaging them in other ways
… EPUB has much more engagement in higher ed than it did six months ago

Rachel Comerford: +1 to wendyreid
… at this point a grassroots effort will bring more value than a conference
… we need more handholding than what a conference allows
… and focus on our verticals and our local geography
… and adding to that by proselytizing at conferences
… I disagree about w3c being something that higher ed folks are aware of
… they mostly not familiar with w3c
… or only know wcag
… it doesn’t occur to them that we want to be involved
… one thing I’ll say about Frankfurt–it’s great for trade, but it’s not big for education publishers

Bill Kasdorf: +1 to the grassroots approach

Ivan Herman: we seem to be converging on Wendy’s idea
… let’s remind ourselves that it’s a massive effort to create an event for a large numbers of people
… IDPF piggybacked on BEA for a reason
… these are major undertakings, and we might not have the resources to do it
… Wendy’s approach is more manageable, more possible

Luc Audrain: I like the idea of regional events
… could we have a unique preparation, a unique task force, which could go to regional book fairs
… Frankfurt does have education stuff
… we could have a task force to prepare the content of a conference, and then apply it to different regions. Frankfurt in Europe.
… there’s a question of money

Bill Kasdorf: My point was that W3C is more relevant to edu publishers than IDPF
… I like the idea of, rather than spending time on a single conference, getting on the program where various sectors are is important
… we’re already past deadlines for some conferences next year

Jeff Jaffe: Luc, you asked if we should have a task force on regional conferences
… and that made me step back and think about what we’re doing
… going back to the 100s of former IDPF members, and asking them what you were getting from IDPF, and why hasn’t that transitioned into interest in W3C?
… maybe it could be that the transition from EPUB 2 to EPUB 3 is done. But I don’t know why these people dropped off.

Rachel Comerford: I would speculate…
… there is an understanding that w3c is for developers, and the technically minded, and they don’t understand much about the business group

Luc Audrain: if for Europe we are trying to do something in Frankfurt, what help could I get from W3C?
… how could it be organized? This is not for this meeting for it, but we should figure it out.

Jeff Jaffe: Ivan is in Europe, and Alan is spending half his time there, and there’s European staff

Luc Audrain: we can talk about that in the future
… any more questions?
… we had more topics about the different groups

5. EPUB 3.2 task force

Luc Audrain: the task force about REC track is still discussing
… we have other issues about priorities
… the 3.2 spec is being improved by feedback from EPUBCheck
… we can have a final report of 3.2 when EPUBCheck is done
… I was wondering about bug reporting
… and there are new CGs, with BD/Manga
… we talked about some issues around calls
… especially with timing for Japan etc

Tzviya Siegman: we had the WG chairs call; I’ll be reaching out to new members from Japan about a welcome call at an asia-friendly time and then a regular asia-friendly call

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: so we’d have some calls at US/Euro friendly times, and others at other times

Tzviya Siegman: we need to get a feel for what people want

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: should we do this across groups?

Luc Audrain: it’s a difficult question

Jeff Jaffe: I don’t solutions for time zones
… I met with Makoto in Japan, he was describing in detail how Japanese publishers were avoiding CSS writing modes and using bitmaps
… I shared with him how we might finesse the issue with REC track

Dave Cramer: in the REC TF, Makoto has pushed objection on features removed form EPUB spec

Jeff Jaffe: we’re working on addressing the concerns. F2F discussions were helpful.
… it’s just one piece of a larger puzzle.

Luc Audrain: we are out of time. Thanks to all. We’re working on an agenda for the next BG call.