Re: [Minutes] PMWG 2025-05-08

More the former rather than the latter, but mostly I'm arguing for a new label. Sometimes an author comes up with a great title first, and the story then just writes itself.


> On May 9, 2025, at 1:16 PM, <matt.garrish@gmail.com> <matt.garrish@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Sure, that’s a fair point. I’d prefer to hear everyone’s opinions on this so I don’t think it’s productive to argue for or against any of the feedback we get. I was just curious from that comment if there was a technical solution within EPUB 3 that you envisaged so that users could be alerted to the type of EPUB 3 publication that they were getting or if you are arguing for a brand new format of EPUB.
>  
> Matt
>  
> From: Eric Hellman <eric@hellman.net> 
> Sent: May 9, 2025 11:58 AM
> To: matt.garrish@gmail.com
> Cc: Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>; W3C PM Working Group <public-pm-wg@w3.org>
> Subject: Re: [Minutes] PMWG 2025-05-08
>  
> I'm asking for more consideration of end users who would have no way of knowing whether EPUB3 files will work on the reading systems they use. These are not people who do not know what XML syntax is!
>  
> I would love that have an EPUBish format that packaged HTML files. but dont give it a label that creates angry end users!
>  
>  
>> On May 9, 2025, at 10:35 AM, <matt.garrish@gmail.com <mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com>> <matt.garrish@gmail.com <mailto:matt.garrish@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>  
>> Hi Eric,
>>  
>> > By contrast, a distinguishing label like  "EPUB+" for even this technically modest change would encourage adoption by reading systems developers, and by their customers.
>>  
>> Could you clarify what you mean by this? EPUB 3 is a continuous line with all files being identified by version=”3.0” in the package document. There would be no reliable way to differentiate an “EPUB 3.3” file from an “EPUB 3.4” if they both use the XML syntax.
>>  
>> Are you asking for a version number change to make an “EPUB+”, which would put this out of scope for this revision, or are you just wanting us to find a way to differentiate EPUB 3 files with the HTML syntax from EPUB 3 files with the XML syntax without changing the version? (I think the latter could be done, for example, using a dc:format tag with a required identifier.)
>>  
>> Matt
>>  
>> From: Eric Hellman <eric@hellman.net <mailto:eric@hellman.net>> 
>> Sent: May 9, 2025 10:08 AM
>> To: Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org <mailto:ivan@w3.org>>
>> Cc: W3C PM Working Group <public-pm-wg@w3.org <mailto:public-pm-wg@w3.org>>
>> Subject: Re: [Minutes] PMWG 2025-05-08
>>  
>> I'd like to comment on allowing html syntax in EPUB 3.4.
>>  
>> While I understand the technical reasons behind the change, and agree with them for the most part, allowing html syntax in EPUB 3.* would be a terrible marketing decision. Because of this, Project Gutenberg would not implement 3.4 and I would counsel other organizations I advise not to implement any support for it. We have touted our implementation of EPUB3 for over 75,000 titles despite its inconsitent implementation in reading systems. When something doesn't work it causes support issues for us. We continue to produce EPUB2 files because certain strongly desired functionalities don't work in systems that claim to support EPUB3. (I'm looking at you, ADE.) It's clear that there will be reading systems that just won't work with HTML syntax, and users of those systems will have no way to know if the files they acquire will work with the systems they use. Even if we were to produce EPUB 3.4 files with XML syntax, we would struggle to communicate that to a user who has experienced failures with other EPUB3 files. Those failures would be black marks against the EPUB label or "brand".
>>  
>> Has anyone articulated a benefit to end users for this change?
>>  
>> By contrast, a distinguishing label like  "EPUB+" for even this technically modest change would encourage adoption by reading systems developers, and by their customers. For distributors like us, it would allow us to easily communicate a modernization step without a lot of work on the backend.
>>  
>>  
>> Eric Hellman
>> President, Free Ebook Foundation
>> http://ebookfoundation.org <http://ebookfoundation.org/>
>> https://bsky.app/profile/gluejar.com
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On May 8, 2025, at 10:20 AM, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org <mailto:ivan@w3.org>> wrote:
>>>  
>>> Minutes are here:
>>>  
>>>   https://w3c.github.io/pm-wg/minutes/2025-05-08.html
>>>  
>>> Ivan
>>> 
>>> ----
>>> Ivan Herman, W3C 
>>> Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
>>> mobile: +33 6 52 46 00 43