Publishing Chairs’ Telco — Minutes

Date: 2019-08-09

Attendees

Present: Mateus Teixeira, Ivan Herman, Dave Cramer, George Kerscher, Luc Audrain, Wendy Reid, Matt Garrish, Jeff Jaffe, Garth Conboy, Rachel Comerford

Regrets: Avneesh Singh, Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平), Liisa McCloy-Kelley

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain

Scribe(s): Dave Cramer, Luc Audrain, Jeff Jaffe

Luc Audrain: so mny chicken?

Luc Audrain: I sent an agenda yesterday with two main items

1. EPUBCheck Development

Luc Audrain: project is still running; there are milestones this fall
… we have been talking about on the management call
… we could reconfigure the dates
… the doc has a more detailed timeline
… it’s not a big change
… just a one-month delay
… so we would have to pay for documentation and refactoring/cleanup
… paid end of August
… can I ask for your approval?

Ivan Herman: See updated timeline for epubcheck

Luc Audrain: stage two finishes at the beginning of next year.
… any questions?
… I will consider that you approved this change.
… there will be a management call on 22 August

2. Amazon

Luc Audrain: Jeff sent us an email about amazon’s particaption

Jeff Jaffe: the AB meets four times a year; this week we met in Seattle
… in the evening we meet with locals
… as we did in NYC last year
… since we were in Seattle, and Amazon is a new w3c member
… it was suggested that we meet up with amazon
… there were 6-8 amazonians, 3 related to kindle
… they only sent people where they had a specific agenda
… Avneesh put together some issues, which attracted people to the meetup
… 3 people from kindle team, 2 who have recently joined CSSWG
… they seemed interested in w3c stuff
… and eager to work together
… we talked about some specifics
… they ingest EPUB, but lose some a11y info
… which is unfortunate
… Avneesh, Florian, and I are the AB members with some knowledge of publishing
… I talked to Stanton and Giorgio… you’ll be at TPAC, would you be OK working with the EPUB community on issues of mutual interest?
… they said sure, let’s do that.
… Giorgio on the Kindle side
… none of them were audible folks
… so I’d like to have the SC appoint someone to work with them
… and let’s spend some time together at TPAC
… wendyreid can add something to PWG agenda
… and they may be joining the EPUB 3 CG

Luc Audrain: this is good news
… and a great opportunity

George Kerscher: I’ve met with joanna before
… they have given me some things they want to see coming out of EPUB and other areas
… it would be great if the kindle group could voice these things directly instead of going through me

Mateus Teixeira: +1 – very encouraging

George Kerscher: Joanna has publicly said that the best input for Kindle is reflowable EPUB 3

Luc Audrain: in europe, we are seeking contact with amazon people in context of euro a11y act
… the kindle guidelines ask publishers to create good EPUB files
… even EPUB3 born accessible files… we are eager so that the efforts done in europe for production accessible epub3 convert correctly and with no loss in kindle format
… Gregorio P. did some tests, and we know there some issues, some loss of a11y information
… so we had to chance to meet an amazon manager from europe in a meeting setup by the french minister of culture
… explaining the consequences of the euro a11y act in the future
… both on ebooks and the selling platforms
… that concerns amazon
… and Fernando met these guys in Brussels in july
… so there will be a meeting in october with Cristina M, etc
… we want to discuss a11y and also about amazon approval of EPUB a11y specifications
… for best ingestion format for kindlegen tool
… to build accessible mobi files
… at the meeting we want to show the euro commission that there is already a good spec, epub a11y, and so something new isn’t needed
… and this is on an ISO track now
… and so would become the Euro standard
… we will meet in Europe, we can meet at TPAC
… how might this be syncronized

Ivan Herman: I was just wondering
… is there a systematic overview of the EPUB 3 features that are forgotten by amazon
… not only a11y but in general
… so we would have a framework of areas where we could work towards syncronization

Luc Audrain: Gregorio did tests from an accessible EPUB3
… we don’t have systematic analysis but we can identify some features
… we don’t know kindle format spec, as it is not public

Rachel Comerford: I can give an example
… Amazon recommends that you avoid tables in your EPUB, because they don’t ingest or display properly in Kindle

Garth Conboy: it’s almost an a11y feature ;)

Luc Audrain: there could be a slot for the PWG f2f in Fukuoka

Wendy Reid: yes, that’s the plan
… I put it on our agenda list
… I’ve met Stanton before

Ivan Herman: I was wondering what the next step was
… who should contact who
… jeff, you said you would be happy to make an introduction

Dave Cramer: contact with the PWG is great
… their interest may be on EPUB3 , so the CG
… it would be good to also talk about epub3

Ivan Herman: the pwg can donate some time :)

Luc Audrain: when I speak about issues with amazon in europe
… if we want sync of these discussions, avneesh and I are on both sides, so we can help

Ivan Herman: +1 to jeff

Jeff Jaffe: first, to dave, the reason I suggested the PWG meeting was not about web publications, but because it there was an opportunity
… the next step is to appoint someone to work the agenda

Luc Audrain: +1 to donate an hour to the CG

Jeff Jaffe: probably the best person would be someone with first-hand experience of the interop problems between EPUB and Kindle

Luc Audrain: Rachel, you have experience

Rachel Comerford: um…

Wendy Reid: I was going to suggest… I’m happy to slot an hour for amazon in the meeting
… but I’d love to have an agenda for it
… jeff, if you can put both me and rachel in touch with stanton and giorgio, we can figure it all out together

Garth Conboy: that works for me
… the EPUB community, broadly speaking, does need to work with amazon

Luc Audrain: the idea to have this time slot is a good idea
… avneesh and I could have some part of working on the agenda

Jeff Jaffe: I don’t think we should have too many people working on the agenda
… to garth’s point about relationship building
… I think we can do multiple things in an hour if we clearly communicate.
… 15min on relationship, 15min on a11y, X minutes on interop, etc.

Luc Audrain: what is the conclusion

Garth Conboy: wendy and Rachel

Rachel Comerford: I’m happy to do it. I have lots of experience with EPUB and Kindle

Jeff Jaffe: everyone else, send your ideas to Wendy and Rachel

Luc Audrain: wendy and rachel, you will be the contact, and then we will share the draft agenda?

Rachel Comerford: yes

Luc Audrain: other next steps?
… I’ll let you know when we have a date about the federation of european publishers meeting

Ivan Herman: if i am optimistic and there is a goal at the end of the meeting for some convergence
… this systematic list of issues is something the community could try to do
… we’ll need a place for that

George Kerscher: regarding the euro directive
… does that also require harmonization from PDF
… folks from NISO have asked if i wanted to be more involved with PDF-UI (?) work

Luc Audrain: yes, you are right
… the euro a11y act doesn’t speak about file formats, just says ‘ebooks’
… considered as services that need to be accessible
… in 2025 all ebooks will have to be a11y

Dave Cramer: (have to stop scribing for about two minutes)

Luc Audrain: formats include PDF
… George, if you have questions about PDF, LMK

George Kerscher: Thank you.

Luc Audrain: We are done with the topic. We have next steps and assignments.
… Jeff?

Jeff Jaffe: Yup, we are done on this one.

Luc Audrain: Next point on agenda

3. PBG event in Japan

Luc Audrain: We have 4 items

Ivan Herman: See latest version of the agenda

Luc Audrain: 4 people for them
… confirmation from the people
… first 2 are more informal
… Murai-sensei keynote
… one session on accessibility
… ISO work - Murata-san
… Daisy Japan people
… last topic is more brainstorming about publishing
… daihei has a chance to invite people from animation,
… people here are still gathering
… any more questions?

4. WG TPAC agenda

Wendy Reid: there’s a google doc for the agendat
… we’ll discuss in the PWG meeting on Monday

Ivan Herman: See F2F agenda page (to be completed)

Luc Audrain: Dave, you opened a discussion in the CG yesterday on the EPUB roadmap?

5. EPUB discussion

Dave Cramer: CG call yesterday started EPUB roadmap
… very interesting discussions
… on lot of cases figure out what is the scope for spec, RS, outside our control
… design principles for EPUB, like HTML
… foundation principles before starting

Luc Audrain: it’s very interesting to see the rapidity of reactions
… and there is a larger community discussing things in the context of production all over the world
… the cg is doing a very interesting job
… not all these items belong to the spec or the cg
… but people working every day with epub are expressing their concerns
… any other business?

Dave Cramer: (silence)

Luc Audrain: thanks everyone, thank you dave for scribing.