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

A morning of meetings, a pile of emails.

I am going to attempt to make some sense of this and set a goal for this group to a decision by the time I return to my desk on Wednesday morning:

Ivan has provided revised definitions [1] of “Web Resources”, “Web Document”, and “Portable Web Document” based on the extensive feedback from this group.

It seems to me that some of the conversation has gotten to the point of reminding ourselves what our task is.


1.       We are defining terms that we (DPUB IG) use so that we communicate clearly with one another as well as with other W3C groups (and anyone else). This may mean saying “Bagel is a bread product originating in Poland, traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked.” [2]. This definition clearly indicates that we are not talking about “The Montreal bagel, a distinctive variety of handmade and wood-fired baked bagel. In contrast to the New York-style bagel the Montreal bagel is smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven. It contains malt, egg, and no salt and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked.” [3]

2.       We are NOT detailing information about formats in the glossary. This is not a specification. It may seem that information about formats is implied, but that is not the discussion we are having now.

3.       We are NOT providing information about the process by which one achieves any of the terms identified. Unlike the bagels, the cooking is not part of the definition. This too may be part of a future (or not – TBD).

4.       We are NOT attempting to redefine terms like “Web”. Those terms have widely-known and accepted meaning and we do not wish to usurp them, and we do not need to explain them here.

As Ivan mentioned [4], our current charter includes working on EPUB+WEB (or whatever name you would like to recommend for this white paper).

Although there has been much discussion today, the only recommendation I see for a change is to remove the word “exclusively”. I think this term clarifies the intent of “portable”, which we have addressed at greater length in our packaging document [5].

If anyone takes issue with a definition or a piece of definition, can I request a proposed change of text?

Thank you and have a good weekend.

Shana tova to those for whom it is relevant,
Tzviya

[1] https://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/Glossary

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagel

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal-style_bagel

[4] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-digipub-ig/2015Sep/0108.html

[5] https://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/Requirements_for_Web_Publication_and_Packaging


Tzviya Siegman
Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>

From: Leonard Rosenthol [mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com]
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2015 1:42 PM
To: Ivan Herman
Cc: Deborah Kaplan; W3C Digital Publishing IG; Bill McCoy; Olaf Drümmer; Liam Quin; Ralph Swick; Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken
Subject: Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other things...)

I like the term Portable Web Document – but it needs to be general purpose to apply to any type of content and not only those for which digital publications apply.

Ivan, you and Deborah, are considering the font (in my example) to be content while I consider it to be a resource.  If it were content, then I would agree with you.  However, I am pretty sure that most folks would agree with me that it is a resource.  And because it’s a resource, it falls into the second part of the sentence where exclusively applies.

I am fully in agreement that we wait to make any changes to that the document until we resolve the terminology.  That also means we don’t update it or re-publish it, as I thought I read that you were planning.

Leonard

From: Ivan Herman
Date: Friday, September 11, 2015 at 12:09 PM
To: Leonard Rosenthol
Cc: Deborah Kaplan, W3C Digital Publishing IG, Bill McCoy, Olaf Drümmer, Liam Quin, Ralph Swick, Tzviya Siegman
Subject: Re: [Glossary] Definition of a portable document (and other things...)


On 11 Sep 2015, at 17:00 , Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>> wrote:

[Combined response to both Deborah and Ivan]

>General purpose: yes. But getting into all the details of how they behave outside the realm of Digital Publishing
>(whose focus, I believe, should be Portable Web Documents only): I do not think we can and we should.
>
I can think of numerous types of documents that would like to be Portable Web Documents but have NOTHING to do with DigPub – and I would HOPE that we would want all of those to be included by our definitions.    If our goal is only to define terms for DigPub, then we should be using DigPub specific terms such as a “Portable Digital Publication” and not the more generic “Portable Web Document”.     This is something, you may gather, that I feel VERY strongly about.


Well… to be honest, I am not too much hung on the name. But I do feel strongly that we should not get outside our boundaries, ie, DigPub. I just do not know whether the term 'digital' is too broad or not, because, to be very precise, we are working on the intersection areas of digital publishing and the Web. I want to avoid being led to areas that are not Web related.

But again, if we change Web Document to Digital Document, and Portable Web Document to Portable Digital Document: I do not really mind.



>A Portable Web Document is a Web Document whose all constituent Web Resources are Portable.
>
It’s not a great definition, but I can live with that.  However, it now takes us into the definition of portable.

>>>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
>>- 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.
>I do not believe that is a problem. The user agent is able to render the essential content of the relevant HTML using a fallback font
>
Then perhaps we have a language problem.   The word exclusively (<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exclusively?s=t>) has a very clear and unmistakable meaning that NOTHING ELSE can be used – that means “fallbacks” are not included.    It is that word in that sentence which is the problem.  If you remove exclusively and/or replace it with another word (predominantly?  Mostly? ??) then I believe we are OK.


I certainly do not mean NOTHING ELSE. Deborah's approach (in her other mail) is that the inclusion of the 'essential content' terminology mitigates this and, I must admit, this is the same for me, so I do not feel like being forced by this 'exclusively' term. Again, if people are fine with 'predominantly' or 'primarily': I am fine with that.



>We are defining terms that are focused on the particular needs of Digital Publishing.
>
Then they should be specific terms, not general ones.

>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.
>
Can you please give an example? I am not aware of a case where the same term is defined in a contradictory manner.  Sure, the same term may be defined with more or less specificity or with a particular focus in mind but that’s taking the generic->specific and NOT the reverse (which is what you are implying we should do).

>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.
>
For terms that already exist, I agree.  However, we are creating NEW TERMS and those terms are NOT specific to DigPub…and that’s the problem.


>I would prefer not to touch to that document now. But, as I said, that is why this conversation is important.
>
Again, then we have a serious disagreement as that document is a big part of the work of this committee and the longer that it remains invalid that more confusion that is caused by anyone wishing to join this effort.   I’ve already most of the work to remove that term, but haven’t pushed it yet.

I do not see where you feel there is a 'serious disagreement'. While I understand your issues with that document, what I claim is that we should not change that document's title (and relevant content) until we have our terminology right (and, probably, some of the results of this discussion should find its way into the document, too). I do not see where the problem is…

(There may be other issues with the naming of the document that we must be careful about, namely the perception we give to an established industry, but we should discuss that at another time when this current discussion has got to an equilibrium point.)

Ivan




Leonard

From: Deborah Kaplan
Date: Friday, September 11, 2015 at 10:26 AM
To: Leonard Rosenthol
Cc: Ivan Herman, W3C Digital Publishing IG, Bill McCoy, Olaf Drümmer, Liam Quin, Ralph Swick, Tzviya - Hoboken Siegman
Subject: 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


----
Ivan Herman, W3C
Digital Publishing Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/

mobile: +31-641044153
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704