My opinions about the future of EPUB 3.2

Folks,

I read the draft minutes of the joint F2F of the publishing working group
and the publishing business group with interest.  (Ivan, special thanks
to your timely draft minutes! )  Here are my opinions about the future of
3.2.

First, 3.2 obviously makes 3.1 irrelevant.  I am very happy about
this.

Second, I agree that 3.2 as of now does not achieve interoperability.
But I oppose to dropping non-interoperable features from 3.2 or 3.X
since some publisher might have already sold EPUB publications
containing such non-interoperable features.  We can drop a feature
only when we are very confident that no commercial publications use
it.  In the publishing business, longevity is more important than
interoperability.  (Note: Japanese publishers have agreed on
a tiny EPUB3 profile for interoperability.)

I thus do not see any technical values in a W3C recommendation for
EPUB 3.2.  But I see a political value (better marketing) and a
procedural value (smooth standardization in ISO/IEC).

I would welcome EPUB 3.2 as a REC, if the current draft is published
as is.  I suppose that the W3C procedure has to be changed since EPUB
3.2 is not interoperable.

As I do not expect any significant technical changes to EPUB 3.2,
I do not really care which group does EPUB 3.2 as a REC.

Regards,
Makoto