ISO/IEC standardization of EPUB: Procedure

Dear colleagues,

I plan to send a sequence of e-mails about this topic.  This first
e-mail is about procedures.  The ISO/IEC JTC1 SC34 secretariat
checked the content of this e-mail.

1) ISO/IEC TS 30135

The combination of EPUB 3.0 and FXL has been published as
ISO/IEC Technical Specification 30135-1 to -7.  They were
submitted by Korea as Draft Technical Specifications using
the fast-track procedure.

2) Fast-track procedure

Member bodies (including Korea) are able to submit their national
standards as draft international standards (DISs).  Fast-tracked DISs
are voted only once for acceptance as International Standards.

It is not impossible for Korea to adopt EPUB 3.0.1 or 3.1 as national
standards and then submit it as a Draft International Standards.

Member bodies were allowed to submit Draft Technical Specifications,
but they are no longer allowed to so due to recent changes to ISO/IEC
directives.  Thus, Korea cannot submit EPUB 3.0.1 or 3.1 as Draft
Technical Specifications.

3) PAS procedure

PAS submitters (including W3C) are able to submit recommendations as
draft international standards (DISs).  PAS-submitted DISs are voted
only once for acceptance as International Standards.  No existing
versions of EPUB are W3C recommendations.  Thus, W3C is
not allowed to submit EPUB3 as draft international standards.

There has been no PAS process for draft technical specifications.
Thus, W3C is not allowed to submit EPUB3 as draft technical
specifications.

4) Normal procedure

It is possible to use the normal process for revising ISO/IEC 30135 in
sync with EPUB 3.0.1 or 3.1.  ODF 1.1 (OASIS standard) was standardized
in ISO/IEC SC34/WG6 in this manner.  Associating Schemas with XML
documents 1.0 (W3C Working Group Note) was also standardized in
ISO/IEC SC34/WG1 in this manner.  Although the normal procedure
requires more than one ballot, it is not so slow as long as no
oppositions are supported by other member bodies.

https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/NOTE-xml-model-20110811/

What is more, SC34 has already made a resolution for using the normal
procedure for revising ISO/IEC TS 30135.

  Resolution 9: Revision of ISO/IEC TS 30135: 2014, Information technology
-- Digital
  publishing -- EPUB3 (all parts)

  SC 34 creates sub-projects for a revision of TS 30135 (all parts) and
  assigns them to JWG 7 for development. The revision is to address the
  latest EPUB3 revision (3.0.1), in which parts 2 and 7 are merged. SC
  34 instructs its Secretariat to take the necessary action to obtain
  JTC 1 endorsement in accordance with JTC 1 Supplement 2.1.5.4.

5) Superseding

No matter which process is used for standardizing EPUB 3.0.1 or 3.1 in
ISO/IEC, the current version, ISO/IEC 30135:2014 (EPUB 3.0 and FXL),
will disappear from the ISO/IEC catalog.

It is not completely impossible to have more than one editions in the
ISO/IEC catalog.  In fact, ODF 1.0 (including 1.1) and 1.2 are both
in the catalog as ISO/IEC 26300:2006 and ISO/IEC 26300:2015.  But
this is a special case.  In the case of OOXML (ISO/IEC 29500), only
the latest edition is in the catalog.  Since EPUB 3.0 is an ISO/IEC
Technical Specification rather than an International Standard, I think
that there are slim chances.


Regards,

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG4 Convenor
Head of Delegation of the Japanese SC34 mirror
Makoto