- From: <kerscher@montana.com>
- Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 17:03:21 -0600
- To: "PBG Steering Committee \(Public\)" <public-publishing-sc@w3.org>
FYI, regarding Apple funding. Best George -----Original Message----- From: singer@apple.com <singer@apple.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 4:45 PM To: George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com> Subject: Re: EPUBCheck needs support from Apple Hi George, thanks, this helps. > On Oct 15, 2019, at 15:36 , kerscher@montana.com wrote: > > Hi, > > See my answers prefixed with GK: > > -----Original Message----- > From: singer@apple.com <singer@apple.com> > Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 3:06 PM > To: George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com> > Cc: Sarah Herrlinger <sherrlinger@apple.com> > Subject: Re: EPUBCheck needs support from Apple > > Hi George > > We’re looking into this and how we’d do it. Moneys go to the W3C, right? > GK: The W3C, hosted by MIT requires that they take 50%, so the funding is being hosted by the DAISY Consortium. DAISY is not charging for collecting and distributing funds. The Publishing Steering Committee authorizes payments to be made by this account. OK, that’s manageable. > Can you help us understand (a) what you they want to do in the tool? > GK: A phased project proposal was submitted. We finished the first phase and we are into the next phase designed to make it a more robust environment and good for long term maintenance. The proposal and plans were made available, and I could get it if you need it. There is a smaller group that oversees the development reports. The code is open source and there is a Github area for the development. I can also put you in touch with Avneesh who is managing the project. If you have a link to, or copy of, the proposal and plans, that would greatly assist me, yes. I will surely be asked “exactly what do they want to do, and do we agree?”. > (b) how much money in total, > GK: the bid was for $136k, I think. The Steering Committee set a goal of $150, which would leave a little extra for ongoing work beyond the two years. OK. > and from each contributor, do you hope for and already have? > GK: The amounts are on the link to the page I sent you. Here it is again. > https://www.w3.org/publishing/epubcheck_fundraising > > We would love to see Apple contribute at a high level, IMO $20k, but as you can see some tech companies contributed less. I don’t think I can see (or want to know) how much each company gave, but it would help me if I could explain how much total has been raised so far, the broad level of support, what’s remaining. So just “we have $xx of the $150K total, for nn donors, whose names are on the page”. > What are the long-term plans for this tool? Isn’t it sitting on a less-than-ideal basis? > > The long-term plans are to maintain the tool. Maintain in what sense? This is probably all explained in the proposal and plans mentioned above…? Fix bugs? Implement missing checks? Make it more <something> (usable, accessible, portable, cloud-based…)? > Once this project is completed, it should be in very good shape. It did develop over a long time with a lot of contributors leading to spaghetti code. This is being fixed in this project. The EPUB 3 Community Group is now developing the long term road map for EPUB, and I expect that EPUBCheck will be an important part of that road map. I’m all in favor of good validation tools. Thanks > > Thanks > You are welcome. > > Best > George > > >> On Oct 14, 2019, at 8:57 , George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com> wrote: >> >> Dear Sarah and David, >> >> I hope you can help to get this to the right people at Apple. Publishing at the W3C is running a project to develop and maintain EPUBCheck. I believe the Books group requires publisher’s files to pass EPUBCheck before they are ingested in to the store. >> >> Because Apple depends on this software, it would be wonderful if Apple donated to this open source activity that the whole publishing ecosystem is using. I understand that it might be difficult to make donations, so we could provide an invoice, if that would help. We would need the name, email, and the amount Apple wanted to be invoiced for. >> >> See the details at: >> >> https://www.w3.org/publishing/epubcheck_fundraising >> >> Please let me know if I can answer any questions. >> >> Best >> George >> >> George Kerscher Ph.D. >> -In our Information Age, access to information is a fundamental human right. >> Chief Innovations Officer, DAISY Consortium http://www.daisy.org >> Senior Advisor, Global Literacy, Benetech http://www.benetech.org >> President, International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) >> http://www.idpf.org Member of the National Museum and Library >> Services Board (IMLS) http://www.imls.gov Chair Steering Council Web >> Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a division of the W3C >> http://www.w3c.org/wai >> Phone: +1 406/549-4687 >> Cell:+1 406/544-2466 >> Email: kerscher@montana.com > > David Singer > Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc. > > > David Singer Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.
Received on Tuesday, 15 October 2019 23:03:26 UTC