Re: Chairing Announcement + A Request

Thanks everyone!

RESOLVED: PMWG will use the echidna publishing system for all documents whenever it is appropriate per the W3C Process.

From: Shinya Takami <takami-s@kadokawa.jp>
Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 1:11 AM
To: matt.garrish@gmail.com <matt.garrish@gmail.com>
Cc: Dale Rogers <dalerrogers@gmail.com>, Laurent Le Meur <laurent@edrlab.org>, public-pm-wg@w3.org <public-pm-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Chairing Announcement + A Request

[EXTERNAL] This message comes from an external organization.
Hello everyone,

We are so sad for Dave's release but we hope he will come back anytime.

+1 for Echidna


Thanks
Shinya




2023年10月10日(火) 3:11 <matt.garrish@gmail.com<mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com>>:
Echidna is a W3C tool for automatically publishing new versions of the specifications and notes using github actions (e.g., when we merge pull requests in github). During the development of epub 3.3, we switched to this process to avoid the time and energy involved in manually re-publishing the documents (e.g., deciding when to republish, get a call for consensus, manually exporting a snapshot, publishing the snapshot to TR).

Since then, we’ve turned off the automatic publishing of the specifications as it doesn’t work well for republishing recommendations. For those, we’re going the manual route of letting changes build up for a while before publishing a revised standard. But we’re still using echidna for notes, as there’s no need to manually re-publish them when we’ve already approved the pull requests.

The issue is that W3C process requires us to approve this automated workflow for all our specifications and notes and we don’t have that resolution. So, for example, we can’t use an echnida workflow right now with the recently published exemption property note until we get this process approved generally for all our work.

Echidna doesn’t change the way that specifications and notes are formatted. That is controlled by respec – a javascript program that runs in/on the documents and is called by echidna as part of generating the static documents.

If you’re really interested, the yml configuration files that are read by echnida are stored here: https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/tree/main/.github/workflows


You can also view the result of echidna runs in the Actions tab by clicking on the various “CI” workflows: https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/actions


(I’m sure Ivan will correct me if I’ve got anything wrong here… :)

Matt

From: Dale Rogers <dalerrogers@gmail.com<mailto:dalerrogers@gmail.com>>
Sent: Monday, October 9, 2023 1:19 PM
To: Laurent Le Meur <laurent@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent@edrlab.org>>; public-pm-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-pm-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Chairing Announcement + A Request

I agree with Laurent. The information on Echidna is sparse. I also Googled. What I gathered from my initial reading:

TR (Technical Report) documents need to be in a specific format. Echidna is an open GITHUB JavaScript-based project that is designed to pull resources from a GITHUB account and put those documents in the proper format for TR documents. Since I do not work with TR documents, I am assuming this project is being designed by folks that need this functionality. I defer to them. If it wasn’t needed, the project would not exist.

As an aspiring fixed-format author (I’m working on my first book now), I know that it would be better to create once, publish easily across multiple platforms (Amazon/Comixology, Ingram, Kobo, etc). Since Amazon/Comixology is a popular platform for comic, graphic novel delivery, can I assume that they are engaging with us to make the publishing process more cross-platform? Is there a resource that explains the history and background of this need, what currently exists, the challenges we are facing, and what is being asked for? Basically, I’d love to be brought up to speed to I can be a better WG member.


Best Regards,

Dale

Dale R Rogers, M.Ed, CIW
Digital Creative Entrepreneur
Author, eLearning Developer
Personal: dale@dalerogers.me<mailto:dale@dalerogers.me>
Web: dalerogers.me<https://dalerogers.me/>






From: Laurent Le Meur <laurent@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent@edrlab.org>>
Date: Friday, October 6, 2023 at 2:47 AM
To: public-pm-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-pm-wg@w3.org> <public-pm-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-pm-wg@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: Chairing Announcement + A Request
"Dave Cramer has decided to step down as one of the co-chairs of this working group due to work obligations."

It was always interesting to discuss with you Dave, even if we had divergence on the topic of Web Publications. The restructuring of the EPUB 3 spec was a great & difficult job, bravo to the team who supported that.

"we’re still working on getting more information on topics like Webtoons for discussion"

It will be mandatory to be in touch with the Amazon team, as it seems they are triggering this discussion.

“Proposed: PMWG will use the echidna publishing system for all documents whenever it is appropriate per the W3C Process.”

+1 , tooling is useful. A demo of echidna would be useful; I don't have a clue about how it works (I Googled it but the info seems scattered).

With regards

Laurent

From: Reid, Wendy <wendy.reid@rakuten.com<mailto:wendy.reid@rakuten.com>>
Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2023 8:47 PM
To: public-pm-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-pm-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Chairing Announcement + A Request
 Hi everyone,  I hope you are all doing well.  I wanted to share this news first before it went out to the W3C mailing lists. Dave Cramer has decided to step down as one of the co-chairs of this working group due to work obligations. Shinya, Tzviya, and myself will be staying on as your co-chairs.  Dave has been essential to the success of EPUB over the years, and it must be said that without him, we wouldn’t be where we are today. He was integral to publishing EPUB 3.2 and leading the group that brought EPUB to W3C, the EPUB CG. He then kindly joined us to publish EPUB 3.3, and we could not have done it without him. Please join me in thanking him for his service to us over the years as both Editor and Chair.  Just as a reminder, we have cancelled tomorrow’s meeting as we’re still working on getting more information on topics like Webtoons for discussion.  Lastly, one small operational request. We need a formal resolution on the books for publishing with Echidna. We use this system to make publishing the documents automatically much easier, so please reply to this email with a +1, 0, or -1 for this proposal:  Proposed: PMWG will use the echidna publishing system for all documents whenever it is appropriate per the W3C Process.
 Cheers,
Wendy



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 Shinya Takami, Ph.D. <takami-s@kadokawa.jp<mailto:takami-s@kadokawa.jp>>
 Technical Director & Evangelist, KADOKAWA CORPORATION
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 Senior Researcher, Keio Research Institute at SFC
  https://www.kri.sfc.keio.ac.jp/en/lab/aplab/

 Co-Chair, Publishing Maintenance Working Group at W3C
  https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/pm/<https://www.w3.org/publishing/groups/epub-wg/>
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