- From: Karen Myers <karen@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2017 00:23:44 -0500
- To: "w3c-news@w3.org" <w3c-news@w3.org>
- Cc: "w3t-comm@w3.com" <w3t-comm@w3.com>
- Message-Id: <BFDF6B14-4DDE-40C1-8745-F463BE2FA6E7@w3.org>
Dear news media, analysts and friends of W3C,
Today W3C announced that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) have combined organizations to better align Publishing and Web technologies and to create a new roadmap for the future of publishing.
More than 75 organizations provided a submission [0] to ensure that the EPUB 3.1 standard, developed by IDPF, remains royalty-free. To maintain EPUB and advance its further adoption, W3C is setting up a separate EPUB (3.1) Community Group that is free and open to anyone to participate.
A new Publishing Business Group will be the focal point for the community to address new needs and requirements and to serve as a forum for industry discussions. The Publishing@W3C roadmap includes plans to charter new standards work later this year to focus on both online as well as offline access for digital publications.
For more information read the press release: https://www.w3.org/2017/01/pressrelease-idpf-w3c-combination.html.en
And text version below.
To request interviews, please contact w3t-pr@w3.org.
Kind regards,
Karen Myers
W3C Media and Analyst Relations
Mobile: 1.978.502.6218
[0] http://www.w3.org/Submission/2017/02/
[1]W3C For immediate release
[1] http://www.w3.org/
New Roadmap for Future of Publishing is Underway as W3C and IDPF
Officially Combine
Publishing@W3C heralds future for how we will read, author, publish, and
discover content and services with Web technologies
__________________________________________________________
Read [2]testimonials
[3]Translations | [4]W3C Press Release Archive
__________________________________________________________
[3] https://www.w3.org/Press/Releases-2017#idpf-w3c-combination
[4] https://www.w3.org/Press/
[5]https://www.w3.org/ — 1 February, 2017 — The vision to align
Publishing and Web technologies and create a new roadmap for
the future of publishing became official today with the
announcement that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) have combined
organizations. W3C is the global standards organization that
develops foundational Web technologies such as HTML, CSS, SVG,
XML and WCAG. IDPF developed the EPUB standard used globally
for accessible ebooks and digital publications.
[5] https://www.w3.org/
Web Inventor and W3C Director Sir Tim Berners-Lee first shared
his vision for the future of publishing on the Web at IDPF’s
DigiCon event in May 2016, where the two organizations
[6]publicly announced plans to explore a combination to
accelerate the alignment of technologies.
[6] https://www.w3.org/2016/05/digpub.html.en
The IDPF membership approved the [7]plan, by a large majority
(88%), and the IDPF Board and W3C have finalized the
transaction. The agreement also includes an unprecedented
number of organizations -- including most IDPF members and
several large publishers who are not IDPF members -- that have
made Royalty-Free (RF) [8]commitments to ensure that the future
of EPUB and the Open Web Platform for publishing is not patent
encumbered.
[7] http://idpf.org/news/idpf-members-approve-plan-to-combine-with-w3c
[8] http://www.w3.org/Submission/2017/02/
"W3C is thrilled to gain the expertise of the publishing
industry with its rich tradition of excellence in developing
many forms of content for books, magazines, journals,
educational materials and scholarly publications," said Dr.
Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. "Working together, Publishing@W3C will
bring exciting new capabilities and features to the future of
publishing, authoring and reading using Web technologies."
Jaffe added that by participating in W3C activities, publishing
organizations will learn about new innovations from other
industries, such as music and entertainment, whose
technologies, like publishing, pre-dated the Web. In the
future, book authors will be able to seamlessly incorporate Web
capabilities such as linking to dynamic documents, search, and
multimedia.
George Kerscher, Chief Innovations Officer for the Daisy
Consortium and president of IDPF since 2010 commented, "By
combining our organizations, we not only align our technology
roadmaps, but also accelerate the adoption of content that is
natively accessible and device-friendly for all types of
publishing, whether you are reading on the Web or offline."
The [9]Publishing@W3C roadmap includes plans to charter new
standards work this spring that will focus on both online as
well as offline access for digital publications. This means
that someone reading on a device that is not connected to the
Web may still interact and retain the information when he or
she is back online, and vice versa.
[9] https://www.w3.org/publishing/
To ensure EPUB's maintenance and advance EPUB's further
adoption, W3C is setting up a separate EPUB (3.1) Community
Group that is free and open to anyone to participate.
W3C is also planning to explore meeting the next generation of
EPUB requirements in a proposed Publications Working Group. The
next [10]EPUB Summit will take place 9-10 March in Brussels,
Belgium.
[10] https://www.w3.org/edrlab.org/programme-epub-summit-2017/
A newly formed W3C Publishing Business Group will hold its
first face-to-face meeting on Monday, 13 March in London, UK,
the day before the London Book Fair opens. Participation in the
W3C Publishing Business Group is open to IDPF and W3C members,
and other interested organizations who wish to join this group.
The Publishing Business Group will be the focal point for the
community to address new needs and requirements and serve as a
forum for industry discussions.
W3C has named Bill McCoy to oversee a smooth transition of
former IDPF members and other interested organizations from the
publishing ecosystem into W3C. McCoy was formerly Executive
Director of IDPF. The former IDPF Board of Directors will
transition to new roles on the W3C Publishing Steering
Committee, providing strategic direction and liaising with the
publishing community and the various Publishing@W3C groups. For
more information about participation in Publishing@W3C
activities contact Alan Bird, Global Business Development
Leader at [11]abird@w3.org.
[11] mailto:abird@w3.org
About the World Wide Web Consortium
The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead
the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards
and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible,
and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C standards
HTML5 and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which all
Web sites are built. For its work to make online videos more
accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016
Emmy Award.
W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of
dedicated technologists representing more than 400 member
organizations and dozens of industry sectors. Organizationally,
W3C is jointly run by the [12]MIT Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United
States, the [13]European Research Consortium for Informatics
and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, [14]Keio
University in Japan and [15]Beihang University in China. For
more information see [16]https://www.w3.org/
[12] http://www.csail.mit.edu/
[13] http://www.ercim.eu/
[14] http://www.keio.ac.jp/
[15] http://ev.buaa.edu.cn/
[16] https://www.w3.org/
EPUB is a registered trademark of W3C.
End Press Release
Media Contact
Karen Myers, W3C <[17]w3t-pr@w3.org>
Mobile: 1.978.502.6218
[17] mailto:w3t-pr@w3.org
Testimonials
[18]Adobe • [19]Antenna House • [20]Apex Content and Media
Solutions • [21]Ascend Learning • [22]Associazione Italiana
Editori AIE • [23]Benetech • [24]Syndicat National de l’Edition
• [25]VitalSource Ingram • [26]Wiley
Adobe
As the leader in creative content authoring and publishing,
Adobe is pleased with the merger of W3C and the IDPF. Adobe
has worked with both organizations to bring professional
publishing techniques to the Open Web Platform and we look
forward to working together to set the roadmap for the
future of publishing. The work on Web Publications will
serve to continue the W3C’s efforts to shape the way that
content is delivered – from classic publications, to
documents, to any content destined for distribution.
Leonard Rosenthol, Senior Principal Scientist, Adobe
Antenna House
Antenna House welcomes the full combination of W3C and IDPF
which will bring together the Web and EPUB under one
umbrella and address the current limitations from previously
having had the two as separate efforts. Since 2011 Antenna
House has offered Cloud Authoring Service for Universal
Books (CAS-UB) that can produce PDF, EPUB and Web from one
source and we will greatly benefit from the combination of
W3C and IDPF.
Tokushige Kobayashi, President, Antenna House Inc.
Apex Content and Media Solutions
This is a watershed in the evolution of the publishing
ecosystem. As digital publishing has advanced, format
flexibility and content interoperability have become
essential. Content needs to move fluidly between
sectors—books, journals, magazines, news, education and
training—and adapt to the formats in which users want to
consume it, online or offline. Open Web technologies
developed and maintained by the W3C are what make all that
work. Establishing EPUB, the format on which today's digital
publishing industry has come to rely, as a first-class
citizen of the Open Web Platform provides the best possible
foundation for an exciting future for publishers of all
types.
Bill Kasdorf, VP and Principal Consultant
Ascend Learning
As an IDPF board member and driver of e-learning content
capabilities, I celebrate this milestone combination of the
W3C and IDPF, two organizations that have led the way to
flexible, accessible and portable learning content. By
combining development efforts and aligning technology
roadmaps, the prospect of rich, interactive, personalized
learning experiences that produce better, measurable
outcomes is bright indeed. Ascend Learning looks forward to
the exciting new capabilities that are sure to emerge from
this combination.
Paul Belfanti, VP Production and Content Architecture
Associazione Italiana Editori AIE
The mission of IDPF is to foster global adoption of an open,
accessible, interoperable standard to promote and create
innovation in the digital publishing ecosystem. With the
combination with W3C this mission will be strengthened.
Thanks to the integration of the skills, editorial and
technological, of the two involved communities it will be
possible to reach more effectively the results necessary to
allow all publishers to create innovative, accessible and
mobile-ready online and offline digital publications.
Cristina Mussinelli, Digital Publishing
Benetech
Benetech, a long standing member of both W3C and IDPF, has
worked closely with both organizations to establish and
advance accessibility standards. With the IDPF’s EPUB
architecture based on W3C’s web technologies, the W3C and
IDPF merger will help accelerate the accessibility of future
publications to not only be born digital but also born
accessible. Benetech is excited to be a part of this new
joint partnership and is looking forward to an accessible
and bright future.
Brad Turner, VP of Global Literacy, Benetech
Syndicat National de l’Edition
(French Publishers Association)
The Digital Working Group at the Syndicat National de
l'Edition (French publishers association) welcomes the IDPF
- W3C combination. French publishers are strongly supportive
of the EPUB format, as one of the key elements of the open
and interoperable ebook ecosystem they promote. This is a
unique opportunity for the EPUB community, familiar with web
standards, to enrich itself in contact with other W3C
groups, benefiting from their skills and advances. In
return, the W3C will benefit from the valuable know-how
accumulated over the years in the book publishing world,
particularly regarding the "arts of readability."
Virginie Clayssen, President of Digital Working Group
VitalSource Ingram
As a participant in the working groups leading to EPUB 2,
EPUB 3 and EPUB 3.1, and as an industry leader in the
implementation of solutions to bring EPUB content and
authoring systems to learners around the world, we are
excited for this next step in the delivery of open web
solutions. The combination of W3C and IDPF aligns the goals,
needs and requirements of users around the globe.
VitalSource is committed to bringing improved solutions to
our content creators, partners and end users based on the
work of W3C and IDPF and are excited to continue our
leadership in this area.
Rick Johnson, VP of Product Strategy, VitalSource
Wiley
Wiley is thrilled to see the two organizations coming
together. We can now return to focusing more on publishing
as a means to share and communicate knowledge, and less on
scrambling to adapt to the plethora of new devices and
modalities. We believe the standards of the two
organizations overlap more than they diverge. We look
forward to the continuing evolution of publishing, wherever
it happens.
Patrick Johnston, Director of Platform Architecture, Product
Technology
__________________________________________________________
[27]Translations | [28]W3C Press Release Archive
[27] https://www.w3.org/Press/Releases-2017#idpf-w3c-combination
[28] https://www.w3.org/Press/
Received on Wednesday, 1 February 2017 05:24:00 UTC