Work in progress on an EPUB 3 Working Group charter (Advance Notice)

Hello,

This is an advance notice that we are developing a charter to propose a new EPUB 3 Working Group.

Development of this charter is part of a more general discussion on the future plans for the Publishing@W3C work at W3C, as a result of a recent F2F meeting of the Publishing Steering Committee. A W3C blog post on the general directions has just been published:

https://www.w3.org/blog/2020/03/listen-to-the-people-the-future-of-epub-and-new-directions-for-publishing-w3c/

As part of the discussion, and also motivated by the large number of responses on a survey on the future of EPUB 3, the decision was to propose a new Working Group to advance EPUB 3.2 on a Recommendation Track at W3C. Although the proposed work may also include some minor technical improvements on the current specification, the primary motivation for the creation of the Working Group is to significantly increase the interoperability of EPUB publications and reading systems. The rigorous W3C process of testing will make a cleaner, clearer, more easily-implemented EPUB 3 specification. The existence of tests will make it easier to demonstrate interoperability, to illustrate when reading systems fall short, and to help those that fall short to catch up. As part of its activity the Working Group will also ensure an even stronger alignment with relevant W3C specifications in terms of the content that a digital publication relies on.

Backward compatibility of EPUB 3 is, however, of a great importance in view of the current, significant deployment of EPUB publications. New versions of EPUB 3 will endeavor to remain compatible with existing content. Any EPUB 3.2 publication should be valid under any new version of EPUB published by this Working Group, unless it relies on features that are subject to errata on EPUB 3.2.

The proposed draft charter is at:
  https://w3c.github.io/epub-3-wg-charter/

We welcome input and feedback on the draft charter in the GitHub repository, where feedback is made public:
  https://github.com/w3c/epub-3-wg-charter

or by email to <public-publishing-sc@w3.org>. Members may also discuss on the member-confidential mailing list <w3c-ac-forum@w3.org>.

If you have any questions or need further information, please contact Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> or Ralph Swick <swick@w3.org>.

This announcement follows section 5.2.2 of the W3C Process Document:
  https://www.w3.org/2019/Process-20190301/#WGCharterDevelopment

For Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director,
Ivan Herman, proposed staff contact for the EPUB 3 Working Group
Ralph Swick, co-chair of the Publishing Steering Committee,
Wendy Seltzer, W3C Strategy Lead;
Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications

--
Coralie Mercier  -  W3C Marketing & Communications -  https://www.w3.org
mailto:coralie@w3.org +337 810 795 22 https://www.w3.org/People/Coralie/

Received on Wednesday, 18 March 2020 17:19:50 UTC