Re: EPUB Rec track (Was Re: [minutes] 2019-10-01)

On 10/2/2019 6:10 PM, Dave Cramer wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 12:56 PM Garth Conboy <garth@google.com 
> <mailto:garth@google.com>> wrote:
>
>     And... jumping the gun...
>
>     Given your two scenarios, Jeff, I'd tend to lean toward #2.  :-)
>
>
> Jeff, do you think work on #2 should happen in the CG or in a WG? Or 
> CG first and then WG?

For those on the thread who forgot what #2 is, let me re-produce it here:

2. Let's assume that we collectively believe that there are additional 
meaningful enhancements for EPUB that we expect to deliver in the next 
three years.  These could be sourced from several directions: (a) 
Sequential arts (manga) requirements, (b) some level of interop with 
Kindle, (c) bringing in some of the audiobooks content into the core 
EPUB spec, (d) bringing in some early Web Publications content, (e) 
natural evolution of the core EPUB 3.0 spec which was already approved 8 
years ago.

If we believe that in three years there is enough meaningful content for

an EPUB 3.5, then I would not advocate taking EPUB 3.2 to REC.  I would

prefer to put our energies into the new function.

.....

to which Garth said - yes let's work on that, and Dave said that the CG 
is developing some proposals.

.....

Now comes Dave's question do we do that work in a CG or in a WG.

W3C's general approach to such questions is that the work should be 
incubated in a CG and standardized in a WG.

When the work is still exploratory (incubation phase) it is too 
expensive to put it in a WG.  Teams will experiment rapidly with 
different approaches; make many changes; and won't want the overhead of 
doing that in a WG.

But CGs lack the rigor of WGs.  The work is not as well known, it will 
not get the testing; horizontal review; level of patent protection; and 
the imprimatur of the membership (AC) and Director.    So when the work 
reaches a greater maturity level it should be transitioned to the REC track.

A roadmap provides an expectation of which new capability will be ready 
technically or needed by the marketplace on what schedule. One (or 
several) Community Group(s) could "hang out a shingle" and immediately 
start working on some subset of the workscope.  The Business Group could 
use the roadmap and assess when the work should start transitioning to 
the REC track.

I don't know the roadmap so I can't answer the question directly.  If 
some of the work is already mature/needed we could start a WG tomorrow.  
If it all matures in two years we could plan to start a new WG in two 
years.  More likely, the work matures at different paces.  The BG 
proposes a charter (some months from now) outlining the expected 
roadmap.  Depending on how many distinct "traunches" of function are 
involved - there could be a single EPUB 3.5 deliverable proposed, or 
incremental 3.3, 3.4, etc. deliverables - there could be different 
deliverables identified in such a charter.

HTH

>
> Dave