Re: [PBG] Agenda for 20181009 call

I apologize for the delayed response. I've been at the book fair in
Frankfurt and heavily subscribed.

My understanding was that they are not actively offering digital products
that require math support. It was a single conversation that may or may not
represent a common problem. The talk (which is now posted on the BISG web
site <https://bisg.org/news/422585/The-art-of-the-possible.htm>) had called
for greater engagement around standards, including EPUB. That led to the
conversation I described earlier.

On Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 9:37 AM McCloy-Kelley, Liisa <
lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com> wrote:

> Brian-
>
> Thank you for raising this issue. I think we all agree that somehow we
> need to find a way for the entire ecosystem to better support math content
> at this point.
>
> I'm interested to know, what did the folks you talked to consider as an
> alternate format to use if EPUB isn't currently serving their needs? Do
> they have ideas of other options?
>
> Liisa
>
>
>
> On 10/8/18, 5:33 PM, "Brian O'Leary" <brian@bisg.org> wrote:
>
>     The stability of export from InDesign is a question, as is Adobe’s
> interest in publishing as a market. The headlines are about Marketo and
> Salesforce, not workflows and integration.
>
>     I am supposed to wear a neutral hat, but seriously... deal with the
> core point. What has Adobe done to make math content more accessible?
>
>     I answered the agenda with data about a problem that real users
> brought to me. I don’t need my inbox filled with outrage over perceived
> slights. I need formats that support math on multiple platforms in ways
> that a print-disabled audience values. Everything else is marketing to
> people who know better.
>
>     Sent from my iPhone
>
>     > On Oct 8, 2018, at 10:33 PM, McCloy-Kelley, Liisa <
> lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com> wrote:
>     >
>     > Leonard-
>     >
>     > I'm not sure what Dave meant, but I took it as a reference to Adobe
> InDesign and some of the less than helpful things it does with an EPUB
> export and that It is not easy to set math in InDesign.
>     >
>     > And there, he confirmed it.
>     >
>     > Same issues at PRH.
>     >
>     > Liisa
>     >
>     > On 10/8/18, 4:27 PM, "Leonard Rosenthol" <lrosenth@adobe.com> wrote:
>     >
>     >> proprietary, unstable format (cough, Adobe, cough)?
>     >>
>     >    Which "proprietary unstable format" are we referring to?   Flash?
>     >
>     >    Certainly not PDF, which has been an open international standard
> for over 10 years now....
>     >
>     >    Leonard
>     >
>     >    -----Original Message-----
>     >    From: Dave Cramer <dauwhe@gmail.com>
>     >    Sent: Monday, October 8, 2018 1:53 PM
>     >    To: Brian O'Leary <brian@bisg.org>
>     >    Cc: McCloy-Kelley, Liisa <lmccloy-kelley@penguinrandomhouse.com>;
> public-publishingbg@w3.org; AUDRAIN LUC <LAUDRAIN@hachette-livre.fr>;
> Johnson, Rick <Rick.Johnson@vitalsource.com>
>     >    Subject: Re: [PBG] Agenda for 20181009 call
>     >
>     >>    On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 1:43 PM Brian O'Leary <brian@bisg.org>
> wrote:
>     >>
>     >> I agree with your reframing. There are knock-on workflow
> implications (eg, if I am heavily invested in Math ML and it isn’t what we
> need to make things work on the web, what do we do?), but we should be
> asking the question as you have outlined it here. Thanks for redirecting me.
>     >>
>     >
>     >    MathML shares the fate of many XML vocabularies: being a crucial
> component of workflows, but being transformed to something else to display
> to the end user. We seem to have figured out the low-level languages of the
> web, but what about the higher-level languages? Where are the tools that
> allow us to work at a human scale without restricting us to a proprietary,
> unstable format (cough, Adobe, cough)? MathML is not particularly usable by
> humans.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>
>
>
>

-- 
Brian F. O'Leary
Executive Director, Book Industry Study Group
232 Madison Avenue, Suite 1400
New York, NY 10016

(646) 336-7141 office
(973) 985-9880 mobile