RE: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?

+1 to the possibility of using EDRLab as to receive funds and manage the
activity.

 

However, how much actual separation from Readium per se this would create to
do this via EDRLab is TBD. At the moment EDRLab is driving and staffing the
two most active newer Readium  initiatives (Readium 2 and Readium LCP) and
there is discussion about potentially even closer integration.

 

And depending on from whom the funds come it might be slightly more
challenging to get funds to a French nonprofit corporation than to a US
nonprofit corporation. For the latter usually at the most a W-9 is required,
there is sometimes more paperwork in international cases.

 

--Bill

 

From: AUDRAIN LUC <LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr> 
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 7:51 AM
To: McCloy-Kelley, Liisa <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com>; Siegman,
Tzviya - Hoboken <tsiegman@wiley.com>; Johnson, Rick
<Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com>; 'W3C Publishing Steering Committee'
<public-publishing-sc@w3.org>
Cc: 'Karen L Myers' <karen@w3.org>; Bill McCoy <bmccoy@w3.org>; Ivan Herman
<ivan@w3.org>
Subject: Re: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?

 

This has a lot of sense.

 

De : "McCloy-Kelley, Liisa" <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com
<mailto:lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com> >
Date : mardi 10 avril 2018 à 15:48
À : "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com
<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com> >, "Johnson, Rick" <Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com
<mailto:Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com> >, 'W3C Publishing Steering Committee'
<public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Cc : 'Karen L Myers' <karen@w3.org <mailto:karen@w3.org> >, Bill McCoy
<bmccoy@w3.org <mailto:bmccoy@w3.org> >, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org
<mailto:ivan@w3.org> >
Objet : Re: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?
Renvoyer - De : <public-publishing-sc@w3.org
<mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Renvoyer - Date : mardi 10 avril 2018 à 15:48

 

What do you think of the idea of perhaps asking EDRLab if they could take
this on? Both the management of the money and the management of the
development once we are beyond an initial “fix-up” phase? I don’t know that
Laurent would be willing, but it would definitely separate it from
“Readium”. 

 

And we as the PBG could help drive the requirements gathering for folks
outside their realm. 

 

 

 

From: "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com
<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com> >
Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 8:36 AM
To: "Johnson, Rick" <Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com
<mailto:Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com> >, 'W3C Publishing Steering Committee'
<public-publishing-sc@w3.org <mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Cc: 'Karen L Myers' <karen@w3.org <mailto:karen@w3.org> >, Bill McCoy
<bmccoy@w3.org <mailto:bmccoy@w3.org> >, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org
<mailto:ivan@w3.org> >
Subject: RE: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?
Resent-From: <public-publishing-sc@w3.org
<mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Resent-Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 8:36 AM

 

Thank you for making that point, Rick. I think it is much more important
than we might be willing to admit. Aside from getting the fundraising effort
going, we need to get an extremely clear message about our goals and
motivations out there. Messaging has been a shortcoming. The blog post that
Dave Cramer is about to publish about why we are doing EPUB 3.2 is a good
step, but we need to work on a focused message including who owns what and
how to get involved. Who do I call when something breaks is the fundamental
question we need to make sure people can answer. With good messaging, we can
make sure it’s obvious.

 

Tzviya Siegman

Information Standards Lead

Wiley

201-748-6884

 <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com> tsiegman@wiley.com

 

From: Johnson, Rick [mailto:Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 11:33 PM
To: 'W3C Publishing Steering Committee' <public-publishing-sc@w3.org
<mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Cc: 'Karen L Myers' <karen@w3.org <mailto:karen@w3.org> >; Bill McCoy
<bmccoy@w3.org <mailto:bmccoy@w3.org> >; Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org
<mailto:ivan@w3.org> >
Subject: Re: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?

 

While I love the idea of having somebody to manage this, and I agree that
Readium seems like a logical possibility, I want to make one cautionary
observation.  There is already a feeling by some that vision for the WP work
and the future of EPUB is unable to be separated from the vision and future
of Readium.   I’d want to make sure this effort around EPUBCheck is clearly
understood as the industry driving it, owning it, and managing it.  Any
misunderstood perception of the motivations here will be hard to counter
down the road.

 

-Rick

 

 

From: Bill McCoy <bmccoy@w3.org <mailto:bmccoy@w3.org> >
Organization: W3C
Date: Monday, April 9, 2018 at 5:27 PM
To: 'W3C Publishing Steering Committee' <public-publishing-sc@w3.org
<mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Cc: 'Karen L Myers' <karen@w3.org <mailto:karen@w3.org> >
Subject: RE: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?
Resent-From: <public-publishing-sc@w3.org
<mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Resent-Date: Monday, April 9, 2018 at 5:27 PM

 

And, based on a few further conversations today I’d like to add one more
aspect: where to put the funds. 

 

I have inquired further internally at W3C and our preference is to identify
another organization to receive and spend the funds, ideally one that is
experienced in management of open source projects. W3C is happy to promote
the activity and its sponsors, to have some high-level guidance of the
activity come under auspices of Publishing@W3C, and to plan to host an
official instance of EPUBCheck a la the current validator.idpf.org and the
HTML5 validator at validator.w3.org (which was the original inspiration for
the IDPF hosted instance). But we think that since the evolution of
EPUBCheck will need to be driven by needs of the stakeholders, it should be
done in a context where this can be prioritized in a streamlined manner,
independently of the evolution of EPUB 3.x and future specifications which
will be developed at W3C. And the overhead for handling earmarked donations
in relatively small amounts would be challenging at W3C.

 

And, FYI I will be leaving the Readium Foundation Board of Directors at the
end of the month. So I can now advocate a bit more directly that doing this
work as a Readium project would be a logical option (previously I was a bit
shy about suggesting this since I had been in effect wearing multiple hats).
It’s certainly not the only option but I think it makes sense and Readium
Foundation has a track record of accepting and managing earmarked donations
for a particular purpose, and is very lean.

 

Of course if no such organization can be found to take the money and manage
the open source work, we could revisit W3C doing so. I’m not saying it’s not
a possibility just that (W3C management thinks that think another entity
like Readium Foundation would be better suited to do it.

 

--Bill

 

From: Bill McCoy <bmccoy@w3.org <mailto:bmccoy@w3.org> > 
Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 12:18 PM
To: 'W3C Publishing Steering Committee' <public-publishing-sc@w3.org
<mailto:public-publishing-sc@w3.org> >
Cc: 'Karen L Myers' <karen@w3.org <mailto:karen@w3.org> >
Subject: have we quantified the EPUBCheck "ask"?

 

Hi Folks,

 

Apologies, I was out all last week with limited access. Thanks for
progressing inc. setting an agenda for tomorrow’s call.

 

Apologies as well if I’ve missed it, but have we laid out a concrete (even
if rough) “ask” for our hat-passing of financial support of EPUBCheck? Karen
Myers has an interested party (major aggregator/distributor of ebooks) and
for her to follow up most effectively I think she should be armed with a
number (or I guess two numbers – ideal amount for initial contribution +
soft commitment to ongoing annual support at a lesser number).

 

For example I thought we were thinking in terms of asking around $10K (for
top level aggregator) plus soft commitment to providing $2K per year ongoing
maintenance. But I’m not sure that I got these numbers at all right, and as
well as an “ask” maybe we could aim a bit higher, for example asking $20K
each from the largest stakeholders? (anyway if we ask $20K we might get
$10K, if we ask $10K we might get $5K). Then for the smallest folks we think
it worth asking for help, maybe we ask $5K and hope to get $2K now, with not
necessarily any even soft commitments as to future maintenance?

 

As far as the quid pro quo’s for contribution I hadn’t heard that either but
we have discussed:

 

*	All funds would be earmarked only for EPUBCheck development
*	Funders would be acknowledged on the EPUBCheck github repo as well
as on any W3C-hosted official deployment of EPUBCheck (successor to
validator.idpf.org)
*	Funders (who contribute a minimum of $10K)would get to participate
in a task force for steering development priorities 

 

Again if this is already figured out, apologies for missing it. If not I
would encourage us to get crisp even if it’s only a best guess. Then we go
try to round up some funders (and if we get a couple very quickly, that will
help us get more).


Thanks,

 

--Bill