Re: My opinions about the future of EPUB 3.2

Makoto-

I was heartened last night to have Jeff Jaffe explain that interoperability is by feature, not against the whole spec. Which to me makes it seem more likely that we might find 2 supported instances for each feature somewhere in the world.

From my perspective, we cannot throw out the features that our customers rely on before they are supported more widely on the OWP. We must find a path from where we are with EPUB 3.x to where we want to be.

I think what we are working to do in these discussions is to:

  1.  Try to define desired priorities for the publishing segments and WG/BG/CG members
  2.  Try to define a path forward that most effectively uses the resources we have

What Laurent put forward was one proposal for that and I think a very interesting one.

I think it would be incredibly helpful if you could help us understand the priorities for the marketplace that you represent. Here are a few questions toward that end:

  *   Is moving 3.2 to ISO approval important for the Japanese market?
  *   Is AudioPUB an interesting concept for the Japanese market?
  *   What kind of priority and resources would you associate with the Manga work?

Would you help us with those questions?

Thanks much!

Liisa

From: MURATA Makoto <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp>
Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 5:49 AM
To: W3C Publishing Business Group <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: My opinions about the future of EPUB 3.2
Resent-From: <public-publishingbg@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 5:49 AM

Folks,

I will not repeat my argument against dropping non-
interoperable features.  Here I would like to explain
my opinions about fundamental problems that cause
interoperability problems to EPUB 2.X and 3.X.

EPUB has deviated from the OWP.  EPUB has its
own features (such as the spine element) that affect
rendering and user interactions.  Unless we drop
all such features and enhance the OWP instead,
interoperability of OWP will NOT guarantee
interoperability of EPUB.

So I conjecture that EPUB 3.X will not provide
interoperability no matter what we do.   Certainly,
this is unfortunate.  Creating profiles of EPUB
might work, though.  (In Japan, it worked.)

Regards,
Makoto

2018年10月24日(水) 18:22 Laurent Le Meur <laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org<mailto:laurent.lemeur@edrlab.org>>:
Hi,

To use the new WG motto: what is the problem we're trying to solve?

I see two problems to solve here:
1/ raise the level of interoperability of EPUB 3 reading systems
2/ get EPUB 3.2 standardized by ISO, in order to get Asian adhesion to this version of the standard.

Getting EPUB 3.2 standardized by the W3C is therefore not a solution to the problems; the fact is that resolving the first problem is required to get EPUB 3.2 as a rec, and getting EPUB 3.2 as a rec is a possible step in the resolution of the second one.

Therefore I propose to first tackle the first problem, the interoperability issue.

For this purpose we need IMO to
a/ define what interoperability really means in our case; this is not so obvious, as there is a large diversity of reading systems (especially those based on browser engines, those with custom rendering engines, those with no visual engine (audio or braille UAs); we may have to defines different classes of reading systems and different interoperability levels.
b/ list every feature defined in EPUB 3.2, with their testing requirements. Be careful about what we want to test: do we (still) want to replicate the html/css "can I use"? for custom rendering engines, which implement a subset of CSS (and maybe HTML5), this could be necessary ...
c/ modify the existing (create a new) EPUB test suite, a set of EPUB samples which will help testing each features individually
d/ update the epubtest.org<http://epubtest.org> service to handle the new test suite.

The Publishing CG seems to me the proper place for this work, as it has released EPUB 3.2 (and therefore is now free), can get help from everybody in the industry (BISG ...), and it does not require rechartering the WG.

It would be of tremendous help for the industry to get it done.

In parallel, we should try to assert the difficulty to get EPUB 3.2 directly prepared for ISO standarization (in men/hours).

Then and only then, after the main reading systems on the market have been tested against the new test suite, we will be able to assert the difficulty to get EPUB 3.2 standardized by the W3C (in men/hours), i.e. if there are two conforming implementations for each feature of the standard. This work can be made by the WG.

With this data, we'll be able to decide if direct ISO standarization is harder or simpler than W3C rec + W3C to ISO standardization.

During this period, the WG will be able to focus on an urgency for the industry: "WP and EPUB for audiobooks", which could even be released in 2019 maybe (because the spec is simpler that "WP and EPUB for any type of ebook"). And we may find the time to start working on "WP and EPUB for comicbooks" also. Without rechartering...

Cordialement,

Laurent Le Meur
EDRLab


Le 24 oct. 2018 à 02:11, MURATA Makoto <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp<mailto:eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp>> a écrit :

Folks,

I read the draft minutes of the joint F2F of the publishing working group
and the publishing business group with interest.  (Ivan, special thanks
to your timely draft minutes! )  Here are my opinions about the future of 3.2.
...



--

Praying for the victims of the Japan Tohoku earthquake

Makoto