Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other things...)

+1 to Ivan's definition.

Also, Leonard, I believe that Ivan's definition does correctly synthesize
yesterday's discussion. A Portable Web Document is not a web document that *can
only exist *in an off-line state, it is a web document which *must be able
to* exist in an off-line state.

Ivan's definition:

 A* Portable Web Document* is a Web Document whose all constituent Web
> Resources are Portable.


Encapsulates this perfectly.


While I recognize that this group was formed to focus on the particular
> needs of Digital Publishing – if the group is going to take on defining
> globally applicable terms (such as Web Document and Portable Web Document),
> then those definitions MUST be general purpose as well!   Either that or we
> should pick terms that are focused strictly on DigPub.
>

We are defining terms that are focused on the particular needs of Digital
Publishing. As I have pointed out earlier in the thread, if you look at
definitions *on the W3C alone*, you will see that the same word is defined
numerous ways across different working groups and interest groups, and for
different specifications and guidelines. We cannot define general-purpose
terms for all industries that touch on digital publishing; all we can do is
define the terms as they will be used *in our documentats and
communications*.  This is the standard way to use specific terminology, not
just across the W3C, but in all standards bodies. It is impossible to
create general-purpose terms which will have the specificity we need, which
is precisely why we have a glossary.

Think of this as a namespace issue. We are creating a glossary for the
digital publishing namespace.


> >• A *Portable Web Document* is a Web Document whose all constituent Web
> Resources are Portable.
> >
> On the surface, these definitions sounds reasonable.  Unfortunately, as
> soon as you start diving into them, they fall down fairly quickly.   Let me
> give a simple and easy case (using EPUB as an example of a Portable Web
> Document):
> - An EPUB that uses CSS such as { font-family: Helvetica } will not
> qualify since the OWP UA is using a resource not in the document.
>

This would actually cause no problems at all, because of the way "Portable"
has been defined for the purposes of this document:

 A Web Resource in a Web Document is Portable if an OWP compliant user
> agent can render its *essential *content by relying exclusively on the
> Web Resources within the same Web Document.
>

(Emphasis mine.)

Since we have defined portability to mean "essential", and we have defined
"essential" as well, we have avoided this minefield. Unless te EPUB is an
illustration of what the hell that if the font looks like, in which case,
it is only portable if the font is encapsulated in EPUB, because in the
case of that EPUB, the Helvetica font family is essential.

Deborah