IRC log of dpub on 2015-09-14

Timestamps are in UTC.

14:04:20 [RRSAgent]

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14:04:20 [RRSAgent]

logging to http://www.w3.org/2015/09/14-dpub-irc

14:04:22 [trackbot]

RRSAgent, make logs public

14:04:22 [Zakim]

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14:04:24 [trackbot]

Zakim, this will be dpub

14:04:24 [Zakim]

I do not see a conference matching that name scheduled within the next hour, trackbot

14:04:25 [trackbot]

Meeting: Digital Publishing Interest Group Teleconference

14:04:25 [trackbot]

Date: 14 September 2015

14:04:33 [ivan]

zakim, code?

14:04:33 [Zakim]

no conference has been identified yet, ivan

14:05:19 [ivan]

zakim, this will be https://mit.webex.com/mit/j.php?MTID=m09c698f2da7d2f28d301b85cf2d76b08 with password dpub, dial in 644 278 410

14:05:19 [Zakim]

I do not see a conference matching that name scheduled within the next hour, ivan

14:05:34 [ivan]

zakim, this is https://mit.webex.com/mit/j.php?MTID=m09c698f2da7d2f28d301b85cf2d76b08 with password dpub, dial in 644 278 410

14:05:34 [Zakim]

got it, ivan

14:05:53 [ivan]

Chair: Ivan

14:06:31 [ivan]

Regrets+ Tzviya, Markus, Vlad, Deborah, Heather, Julie, Ben, Laura, Jeff, Luc

14:06:50 [ivan]

Agenda: http://www.w3.org/mid/43a7dc9cea074b3e98b0381db0bcf776@CAR-WNMBP-006.wiley.com

14:07:02 [ivan]

ivan has changed the topic to: https://mit.webex.com/mit/j.php?MTID=m09c698f2da7d2f28d301b85cf2d76b08 with password dpub, dial in 644 278 410

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14:58:43 [ivan]

Present+ Mike_Miller

14:58:46 [Ralph]

present+ Ralph_Swick

14:59:20 [pkra]

Present+ Peter Krautzberger

14:59:37 [TimCole]

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14:59:50 [ivan]

Regrets+ Chris

15:00:34 [astearns]

present+ Alan Stearns

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15:01:04 [TimCole]

present+ Tim_Cole

15:01:30 [clapierre]

present+ Charles_LaPierre

15:01:41 [brady_duga]

present+ duga

15:02:06 [Karen]

present+ Karen

15:02:55 [Karen]

Scribe: Karen

15:03:12 [Karen]

Ivan; We have a lot of regrets today, likely related to today being the Jewish New Year

15:03:20 [NickRuffilo]

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15:03:21 [Karen]

…Let's have first agenda item

15:03:23 [ivan]

http://www.w3.org/2015/08/31-dpub-minutes.html

15:03:26 [NickRuffilo]

I'm calling in shortly

15:03:29 [Karen]

…minutes from last time

15:03:30 [NickRuffilo]

then i can scribe if necessary

15:03:39 [Karen]

…any problems accepting?

15:03:45 [Karen]

…Let's record that minutes are accepted

15:03:56 [ivan]

Topic: MathML

15:03:56 [Karen]

…Let's go next to topic of the day

15:03:59 [Karen]

…MathML

15:04:08 [Karen]

…the reason why we thought it would be worthwhile to have this discussion item

15:04:18 [Karen]

…because there has been a lot of discussion within MathML on where and how to go

15:04:22 [Bill_Kasdorf]

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15:04:24 [Karen]

…and consider some radical changes

15:04:28 [Ralph]

s/…/.../G

15:04:29 [Karen]

…so Peter is going to explain this to us

15:04:36 [Bill_Kasdorf]

present+ Bill_Kasdorf

15:04:42 [Karen]

…Peter, please take the floor

15:04:52 [tmichel]

present+ Thierry Michel

15:05:09 [Karen]

Speaker: Peter

15:05:20 [pbelfanti]

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15:05:23 [Karen]

Peter: one of reasons to have this on the agenda, is the discussion on the DigPub mailing list

15:05:40 [Karen]

…what came together at last MathML WG meeting is the rechartering of the MathML WG

15:05:50 [Karen]

…it is up for rechartering next year

15:05:52 [Bert]

Present+ Bert

15:06:01 [Karen]

…the group has been primarily in maintenance mode and has not created new specs

15:06:15 [Karen]

…it seems that W3C does not want to have WGs just do maintenance work

15:06:29 [Karen]

…so big discussion just kicked off on last call is what the future of the Math WG would be like

15:06:39 [Karen]

…if just maintenance, then it would be turned into a Community Group

15:06:46 [Karen]

…seems to be the new status for maintenance focused groups

15:06:58 [Karen]

…if that does not happen, then the Math WG needs some other kind of work item

15:07:18 [Karen]

…This had not yet led to a lot of discussion on Math WG side, but it has coincided with discussions on Digital Publishing group

15:07:26 [Karen]

…and the general direction for MathML

15:07:46 [Karen]

…and my general background working for MathJax, library that renders MathML on web browsers

15:07:55 [Karen]

…we are working on white paper about potential major revisions

15:08:02 [Karen]

…And our long-term goals

15:08:09 [Karen]

…One goal is to further mathematics on the web

15:08:22 [Karen]

…and have people publish MathML in browsers

15:08:31 [Karen]

…native MathML support in browsers has been a long-term goal

15:08:48 [Karen]

…so thinking about this problem, we have come to realization that we have not been successful in that

15:09:00 [Karen]

…we don't see how we can successfully trigger native browser development for MathML

15:09:16 [Karen]

…so thinking about how mathematics can be realized on the web if native support is not realistic goal

15:09:24 [Karen]

…One of things I brought up

15:09:24 [ivan]

Present+ Nick

15:09:34 [Karen]

…see if feasible to focus on work of DigPub and ARIA

15:09:39 [Ralph]

-> http://caniuse.com/#feat=mathml "Can I use MathML? report"

15:09:39 [Karen]

…possibly work on the ARIA side of things

15:09:44 [pbelfanti]

Present+ Paul Belfanti (Having trouble logging into WebEx)

15:09:50 [Karen]

…ARIA spec has a glaring hole when it comes to mathematics

15:09:56 [Karen]

…Seems to be some interest from ARIA folks

15:10:16 [Karen]

…Other side connects to Houdini work and would revolve around the problem of mathematical layout in browser engines

15:10:24 [Karen]

…to spec out the math layouts that are challenging in CSS

15:10:31 [Karen]

…this was discussed at last Math WG meeting

15:10:38 [Karen]

…There was not that much interest from Math WG itself

15:10:48 [Karen]

..but there is interest by myself personally and from MathJax

15:10:57 [Karen]

…we don't see how we can get MathML implmented

15:11:09 [Karen]

…Let me stop here and open the queue

15:11:12 [ivan]

q?

15:11:18 [Karen]

…Does that make sense? Did I miss anything, Ivan?

15:11:23 [Karen]

Ivan: Maybe one more fact to add

15:11:37 [Karen]

…is of course a Working Group at W3C produces recommendations

15:11:47 [TimCole]

q+

15:11:50 [Karen]

…under the new charter this group has the possibility to do proof of concept technical work

15:11:56 [Karen]

…we have more possibilities to do things

15:12:09 [Karen]

…so some of work and possible directions could very well be done in this group and published by this group

15:12:17 [Karen]

…so we could help to move things forward; it's an extra liberty

15:12:19 [Karen]

ack Tim

15:12:20 [ivan]

ack tmichel

15:12:25 [ivan]

ack TimCole

15:12:25 [Karen]

Tim: So Peter, one of the other

15:12:33 [Karen]

…issues that comes up in discussions about MathML

15:12:39 [Karen]

…and wonder about its impact of support

15:12:54 [Karen]

…It is in competition in some circles with LATEX

15:13:08 [Karen]

…is there a problem that the community is a little divided about what needs to be decided

15:13:15 [Karen]

…regarding use of mathematics on the web?

15:13:21 [Karen]

Peter: I would say that is not a real debate

15:13:41 [Karen]

…certainly the case that LATEC and other input forms are still prevalent and successful

15:13:52 [ivan]

s/LATEC/LATEX/

15:13:52 [Karen]

…it's rather verbose so you don't author by hand

15:13:58 [Karen]

…simple syntax

15:14:00 [Bill_Kasdorf]

q+

15:14:05 [Karen]

…WISIWG has not succeeded

15:14:16 [Karen]

…Math WG has overlap with largest group in form of David @

15:14:32 [Karen]

…there is no competition because LATEC tools can understand and render MathML

15:14:39 [Karen]

…lots of tools do this

15:14:49 [Karen]

…more like saying mark-down and HTML are in competition; not a big issue

15:14:54 [Karen]

…there is one exception

15:15:01 [Karen]

…@ academies @

15:15:04 [Karen]

…precursor

15:15:11 [Karen]

…focused on LATEC as a rendering model for the web

15:15:19 [ivan]

s/LATEC/LATEX/

15:15:23 [Karen]

…in our view, since MathJax went another way, not a good strategy

15:15:28 [Ralph]

-> https://khan.github.io/KaTeX/ KaTeX

15:15:32 [Bill_Kasdorf]

q- Just want to reinforce Peter's point that MathML is overwhelmingly preferred in publishing, TeX and LaTex are more for authoring but are usually converted to HTML+MathML when published.

15:15:47 [ivan]

ack Bill_Kasdorf

15:15:48 [Karen]

Ivan: Peter, could you put name on irc that Karen did not catch

15:15:56 [Karen]

Bill: I undid my query

15:16:13 [Karen]

…just reinforcing Peter's point that MathML overwhelmingly preferred by publishing

15:16:20 [ivan]

ack Ralph

15:16:20 [Zakim]

Ralph, you wanted to probe on "native" browser support

15:16:40 [Karen]

Peter: deep down there are some deep technical discussions but don't want to get into those

15:16:43 [Karen]

Ralph: Thank you, Peter

15:16:55 [Karen]

…I work closely with Ivan; he encouraged me to attend this call today

15:17:05 [Karen]

…I am with you on frustrations for native browser support

15:17:13 [Karen]

…I'll paste the "can I use folk"

15:17:14 [clapierre]

q+

15:17:18 [Ralph]

-> http://caniuse.com/#feat=mathml CanIUse MathML

15:17:19 [Karen]

…show that at least some browsers

15:17:27 [Karen]

…2.5 who do support MathML natively

15:17:40 [Karen]

…there is some sense in the browser world that polyfils are not a bad way to go

15:17:54 [Karen]

…especially with a domain specific markup language

15:17:56 [pbelfanti]

q+

15:18:18 [Karen]

…and doing as a polyfill initially and building a corpus of published stuff on web is the way to encourage browsers to provide embedded support and not rely on polyfill

15:18:30 [Karen]

…can you say more about what is making MathJax less of a direction that publishers want to go

15:18:39 [Karen]

…Bill is saying MathML is preferred format for pubishers

15:18:48 [Karen]

…and MathJax works; so what is impeding its use?

15:19:06 [Karen]

Peter: The first thing about the browser support; 'can I use this' is misleading

15:19:13 [Karen]

…the implementations are partial

15:19:23 [Karen]

…biggest problem is that WebKit is not anywhere near production ready

15:19:33 [Karen]

…Geco is much better

15:19:45 [Karen]

…biggest issue with browser support is that browser vendors are not doing it

15:19:51 [AH_Miller]

The fact that Antenna House supports MathML with our XSL-FO engine sells a lot of licenses for us.

15:19:58 [Karen]

…code is almost exclusively written by volunteers

15:20:10 [Karen]

…WebKit went through several volunteers and failed to gain interest

15:20:12 [Ralph]

s/Geco is/Gecko is/

15:20:17 [Karen]

…Apple invested in voice-over

15:20:26 [Karen]

…Google, Chrome speaks but does not render it

15:20:30 [Karen]

…With Gecko it is different

15:20:43 [Karen]

…clear that they don't currently have their own developers working on the code

15:20:55 [Karen]

…Mozilla will invest time to fix issues they create

15:21:04 [Karen]

…but they don't actively implement which is a huge issue

15:21:11 [Karen]

…have been some spurts along the way

15:21:22 [Karen]

…if we wait around, it would take five years to get to production levels

15:21:28 [Karen]

…Why is MathJax not good enough?

15:21:29 [dauwhe]

present+ Dave_Cramer

15:21:38 [Karen]

…We are mission driven, we want to see native driven

15:21:52 [Karen]

…and math is fundamental to communications; MathML fills that language gap

15:21:59 [Karen]

…still lots to do in MathML3

15:22:03 [ivan]

q?

15:22:05 [Karen]

…practically speaking it's performance

15:22:13 [ivan]

q+

15:22:16 [Karen]

…MathML is a very complex spec and math layout itself is complex

15:22:32 [Karen]

…expects a high level of typography that web does not yet have

15:22:38 [Karen]

…polyfill does not cut it yet

15:22:59 [Karen]

…in next release of MathJax we have a new output component that does not require rendering on the client

15:23:11 [Karen]

…pragmatic reasons where you don't have Java scrip under your control

15:23:13 [Ralph]

[thanks for this data, Peter; it will be useful as we continue push on browser developers]

15:23:23 [Karen]

…or suffer from network congestion on mobile devices

15:23:28 [ivan]

ack clapierre

15:23:30 [Karen]

…not depending on JS is crucial

15:23:31 [Karen]

ack Charles

15:23:39 [clapierre]

https://mathml-cloud.cloudapp.net

15:23:43 [Karen]

Charles: I wanted to touch on a couple things about what we are doing at Benetech

15:23:58 [Karen]

…MathML cloud to take either LATEX or MathML to give an accessibility description

15:24:04 [Karen]

…we have some publishers using this in their pipeline

15:24:09 [Karen]

…using as alt text

15:24:15 [Karen]

…or description document

15:24:21 [Karen]

…Benetech is also working on a matrix

15:24:39 [Karen]

…a datebase, volunteer driven, as to what browsers, AT tech, MathJax

15:24:46 [Karen]

…depending on OS, to fill that out

15:24:52 [Karen]

…currently in alpha we are working on that

15:25:03 [Karen]

…and working with Readium folks who are working on MathML support in their products

15:25:12 [Karen]

…We are fully behind this and want to see it succeed

15:25:16 [ivan]

ack pbelfanti

15:25:19 [Karen]

…success of MathML is key

15:25:25 [Karen]

Paul: quick question...

15:25:34 [Karen]

Peter: point out that Readium includes MathJax

15:25:44 [Karen]

…problem is that reading system developers don't integrate it into their reader

15:25:55 [Karen]

…like Apple OS claims they have support but they don't...

15:26:00 [Karen]

…why include a tool like MathJax

15:26:05 [Karen]

…uses math on server

15:26:30 [Karen]

Paul: I had a question about the previous statements on using polyfills as a viable option from an accessibility POV

15:26:44 [Karen]

Peter: older than that

15:26:55 [Karen]

…MathJax is not built in way to leverage partial implementations

15:27:09 [Karen]

…looking to future you could look at web components; shadow DOM

15:27:11 [Ralph]

i|Scribe: Karen|scribenick: Karen

15:27:15 [Karen]

…we are disregarding

15:27:27 [Karen]

…simply because it does not buy us anything; does not solve the rendering issues

15:27:35 [Karen]

…Houdini has hope of simplifying the rendering

15:27:39 [Karen]

…and doing the main job

15:27:43 [Karen]

…that is something you can do

15:27:46 [Karen]

…but at same time

15:28:07 [Karen]

…you have actually a mark-up that should be possible to make HTML and SVG accessible on a level for MathML; that's what ARIA

15:28:09 [Karen]

...does

15:28:14 [Karen]

…would be prudent to have a tool set

15:28:34 [Karen]

…whatever direction math on web takes, it should supercede MathML

15:28:40 [Ralph]

i|Peter: older|[Peter notes that MathJax is not a polyfill in the modern sense]

15:28:56 [Karen]

Scribenick: Dauwhe

15:28:57 [dauwhe]

scribenick: dauwhe

15:29:03 [ivan]

ack ivan

15:29:13 [dauwhe]

ivan: I see that Karen is leaving

15:29:23 [dauwhe]

... do you have to run now?

15:29:27 [dauwhe]

pkra: I can do one more

15:29:32 [dauwhe]

ivan: I was on the queue

15:29:55 [dauwhe]

... let's say you have a free hand in the sense of trying to modify MathML to work better with current environment

15:30:01 [dauwhe]

... and you had a free hand in MathJax

15:30:16 [dauwhe]

... what could be done to move the whole situation out of the current "dip"

15:30:21 [dauwhe]

... what actions would be useful?

15:30:38 [dauwhe]

... taking into account that the browsers don't care

15:30:59 [dauwhe]

... we can put possible answers on the agenda for a new meeting

15:31:19 [dauwhe]

... we have an idea of where we are, the question is where we can go

15:31:29 [dauwhe]

... this can be discussed at TPAC

15:31:34 [dauwhe]

pkra: I won't be at TPAC

15:31:55 [dauwhe]

ivan: thank you very much Peter!

15:32:26 [dauwhe]

ivan: we did not plan for other agenda items

15:32:39 [dauwhe]

... are there any pressing items?

15:33:08 [Bill_Kasdorf]

Dave has permanent merit status. A few minutes of scribing makes no difference.

15:33:11 [dauwhe]

... so let's get back to the topic next week, and we can gather questions

15:33:17 [AH_Miller]

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15:33:24 [dauwhe]

ivan: meeting is adjourned. Thanks all!

15:33:26 [clapierre]

clapierre has left #dpub

15:36:52 [ivan]

rrsagent, draft minutes

15:36:52 [RRSAgent]

I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2015/09/14-dpub-minutes.html ivan

15:37:04 [ivan]

trackbot, end telcon

15:37:04 [trackbot]

Zakim, list attendees

15:37:04 [Zakim]

As of this point the attendees have been Mike_Miller, Ralph_Swick, Peter, Krautzberger, Alan, Stearns, Tim_Cole, Charles_LaPierre, duga, Karen, Bill_Kasdorf, Thierry, Michel, Bert,

15:37:07 [Zakim]

... Nick, Paul, Belfanti, (Having, trouble, logging, into, WebEx), Dave_Cramer

15:37:12 [trackbot]

RRSAgent, please draft minutes

15:37:12 [RRSAgent]

I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2015/09/14-dpub-minutes.html trackbot

15:37:13 [trackbot]

RRSAgent, bye

15:37:13 [RRSAgent]

I see no action items