Re: [epub-33] XHTML design decision

Ah, we tried in the leadup to EPUB 3.1. But there was major concern that many EPUB reading systems used XML-based toolchains to ingest EPUB content, and using the HTML serialization would break those tools. It was ultimately decided that pushing for the HTML serialization was not worth the compatibility risk given there is so much existing EPUB content, and EPUB reading systems are generally updated far less often than browsers.

There is some discussion at https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/issues/636

Thanks,

Dave Cramer

> On Sep 26, 2023, at 4:39 PM, Jens Oliver Meiert <jens@meiert.com> wrote:
> 
> Missed that the EPUB list is now inactive;
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ suggests that discussions have
> moved here. Can anyone comment on the below, where to learn more about
> some EPUB design decision?
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Jens Oliver Meiert <jens@meiert.com>
> Date: Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 10:23 PM
> Subject: [epub-33] XHTML design decision
> To: <public-epub-wg@w3.org>
> 
> 
> Hi EPUB group and list—
> 
> is there anything to read up on regarding EPUB’s design decision(s) to
> use XHTML for content documents (as opposed to using HTML)?
> 
> Are there any plans to open EPUB up to accept plain HTML?
> 
> (I can’t find any further information on this in the specs or on the
> list, given that the keywords are pretty broad.)
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Jens.
> 
> -- 
> Jens Oliver Meiert
> https://meiert.com/en/ · https://mas.to/@j9t
>