Publishing@W3C is the Activity under which the specifically publishing-related groups in the W3C are organized: two Working Groups, two Community Groups, and a Business Group.

The Working Groups

Working Groups are where formal W3C standards, called Recommendations, are developed and maintained. They have detailed charters spelling out the work they have agreed to do and the timeline for its completion. Participants, typically technical people, are from organizations that are regular members of the W3C and that agree not to assert any patent claims on their contributions. There are two Working Groups in the Publishing@W3C Activity.

The EPUB 3 Working Group is developing and maintaining the EPUB 3 family of specifications, with a focus on bringing EPUB 3.3 to formal W3C Recommendation status. Important aspects of that work include restructuring and clarifying the specification and developing a proper testing environment to improve reading system interoperability. Its charter explicitly requires that EPUB 3.3 must be backwards-compatible with EPUB 3.2. EPUB Accessibility 1.1 is also being taken to Recommendation status by this Working Group. Links to current drafts of EPUB 3.3, EPUB Accessibility 1.1, and related specifications are available at the group’s publication status page, along with a wealth of other information about this work.

The Audiobooks Working Group is chartered to maintain the Audiobooks Recommendation, and the Publication Manifest Recommendations on which it is based, as well as fostering and advancing the standardization of audiobooks for the industry.

The Community Groups

Community Groups are where ideas are incubated in the W3C. They do not operate under the formal constraints of Working Groups. They’re open to anybody, not requiring membership in the W3C or adhering to the patent policy required for Working Groups. Community Groups serve an essential role in trying out new ideas and demonstrating the need for a current or future Working Group to advance successful technologies with a proven need to Recommendation status.

The Publishing Community Group is the incubation zone for the Publishing@W3C Activity. It currently has task forces working on accessibility for fixed layout EPUBs and on developing comprehensive documentation for EPUB. New ideas about EPUB should be brought to the CG. Another Community Group is working on Synchronized Multimedia for Publications.

The Publishing Business Group

The Publishing Business Group is for people and organizations across the publishing spectrum to support the Publishing@W3C Activity by informing the Working Groups and Community Groups about needs and priorities, and by raising funds for the development of important resources like EPUBCheck. Its members are primarily from the business side of publishing-related organizations, rather than highly technical staff. Because membership in a Business Group does not include the ability to participate in Working Groups, the dues are less than those for a full membership in the W3C.

Other Related Work of Interest

In addition to the work of the Publishing@W3C Activity, people working in the publishing industry are also often interested in the work of other areas in the W3C, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the Web Accessibility Initiative, among others. Participation in Interest and Working Groups is open to regular members of W3C.

Latest News

Questions? Ivan Herman, <ivan@w3.org>, Publishing@W3C Technical Lead. This page is served from GitHub; comments and suggestions on the page can also be made via the GitHub issues’ list.