Comments on eBooks/Digital Publishing draft charters

As requested, my comments on the two draft charters:

- I think the Digital Publishing one makes more sense than
   the eBooks only one; the Press faces the same issues the eBooks
   world faces. My comments below will then be based on that
   document.

- in section 1, EPUB3 is not an "upcoming" standard. It's already
   a Standard, in status equivalent to W3C RECs. Work on revision 3.01
   just started at IDPF.

- in section 1, I would add the following right before sentence starting
   with "Although that Workshop...":

     More specifically, the EPUB3 Standard relies on some W3C
     technologies that have not reached a stable state yet; some of them
     are already Candidate Recommendations but some others are still
     Working Drafts, considered unstable by W3C Process.

- in section 1.1, I have concerns about the last item: this
   can be only about the bits existing in non-W3C specs that don't exist
   in W3C specs yet. Examples: epub:type attributes, -epub-* extensions
   to CSS, etc.

- in my mind, an Interest Group here is only a temporary shell
   created to bootstrap something. In that perspective, I'm not sure the
   second item is the most important thing here. I think a better
   criterion would be the creation of productive and stable *technical*
   liaisons between the digital publishing industry and the W3C WGs. In
   particular, a clear success criterion for me is a creation of a clear
   liaison process explaining how external standards bodies can ping W3C
   and how W3C can request input or comments from external standard
   bodies after the success and shutdown of the IG. Who, how, where.

- I would revamp entirely section 2; please focus more on the intent
   than on the precise wording below:

   The deliverables include:

   1 a comprehensive list of technologies used by the Digital Publishing
     industry and missing from current W3C specs; each technology should
     name a potential W3C WG host for the technical discussion. A
     document with technical designs and corresponding
     use cases will be drafted for submission to the corresponding WGs.
     Existing tests suites will be attached to the document.
     This document should be published as one or several W3C Interest
     Group Notes.
     It is important to understand that this will remain an ongoing
     effort and that the list should be updated even after the shutdown
     of the IG.

   2 a comprehensive and *prioritized* list of W3C specifications that
     are important to the digital publishing industry but are still in
     unstable state in W3C. A collection of use cases will be attached to
     that list. This document should be published as one or several W3C
     Interest Group Notes.
     It is important to understand that this will remain an ongoing
     effort and that the list should be updated even after the shutdown
     of the IG.

- isn't a 2 years' life for such an IG a lot?

</Daniel>

Received on Monday, 11 March 2013 10:42:10 UTC