Re: Re: Open Annotation in EPUB

Although it doesn’t help users directly, it is worth noting that the technology in the W3C Annotation work is used “behind the scenes” by a number of systems, including Adobe’s own “Send for Review” system to support commenting on arbitrary content. 

Leonard 

From: Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 7:38 AM
To: Christian Tietze <me@christiantietze.de>
Cc: W3C EPUB3 Community Group <public-epub3@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Open Annotation in EPUB 

I wouldn't say "canceled". The issue of annotation in EPUB comes up regularly in the CG, look at the issues that mention annotations in, e.g.: 


https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues?q=is:issue+is:open+annotation <https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues?q=is:issue+is:open+annotation> 



I believe all the issues, actually, share the same problem: while there is a W3C Specification for Open Annotation[1,2,3], there has been very little interest to implement these (the draft from 2015 that you mention refers to a predecessor of that W3C specification at [4]). There are some implementations from third parties (most notably the one from Hypothes.is[5]) but the uptake by Web browsers or Web Engines used by EPUB readers is very low. We are in a strange chicken-and-eggs situation when the browser vendors and EPUB Reader implementers do not see enough business interest to offer this feature, and people who may have an interest do not consider the feature because it is insufficiently implemented… 



One of the latests relevant discussion on the issues' list is [6], and I gave a somewhat more verbose comment on the issue in [7]. [8] is also relevant. 



I would love to see that situation change… 



Cheers 



Ivan 



[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/ <https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/> 

[2] https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-vocab/ 

[3] https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-protocol/ 

[4] http://www.openannotation.org/spec/core/ <http://www.openannotation.org/spec/core/> 

[5] https://web.hypothes.is/ <https://web.hypothes.is/> 

[6] https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues/55 <https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues/55> 

[7] https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues/55#issuecomment-1435702101 

[8] https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues/24 <https://github.com/w3c/publishingcg/issues/24> 








On 22 May 2023, at 18:12, Christian Tietze <me@christiantietze.de> wrote: 


Hi everyone,

I noticed that the "Open Annotation in EPUB" draft from 2015[0] predates
this mailing list's archive, and no public discussion can be found.

[0]: https://idpf.org/epub/oa/

In fact, the search phrase "annotation" doesn't produce any results
at all.

Is there anything the group might want to share regarding EPUB
annotations? Is work on this canceled, or merely paused (indefinitely)?

Cheers,
Christian

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