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23:26:19 <Zakim> RRSAgent, make logs Public
23:26:20 <Zakim> please title this meeting ("meeting: ..."), dauwhe
23:26:29 <dauwhe> meeting: EPUB 3 Working Group Telecon
23:26:47 <dauwhe> date: 2021-03-18
23:26:55 <dauwhe> chair: dauwhe
23:26:58 <dauwhe> guest+ dauwhe
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23:40:38 <dauwhe> dauwhe has changed the topic to: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-epub-wg/2021Mar/0014.html
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23:59:14 <MasakazuKitahara> present+
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23:59:29 <toshiakikoike> present+
23:59:36 <MattChan> present+
00:00:16 <wendyreid> present+
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00:01:14 <duga> present+
00:01:41 <shiestyle> present+
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00:02:26 <MattChan> scribe+
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00:04:07 <MattChan> dauwhe: we have several new people here today
00:04:11 <BenSchroeter> present+
00:04:25 <MattChan> dlazin: i'm a technical writer, documentation expert
00:04:49 <mgarrish> mgarrish has joined #epub
00:05:04 <MattChan> ... i could also maybe help with testing
00:05:31 <MattChan> rob smith: i'm from ebsco, we're an educational content aggregator
00:05:39 <MattChan> ... here representing our ebooks group
00:05:51 <mgarrish> present+
00:06:09 <MattChan> ... particularly around a11y, and George's gh issue about virtual page numbers
00:06:24 <MattChan> Topic: Virtual Page Numbers
00:06:24 <dauwhe> https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/issues/1542
00:06:36 <MattChan> dauwhe: we discussed this issue on the last call without reaching a resolution
00:07:02 <MattChan> ... we recognize the utility of page numbers, esp. in educational environments
00:07:14 <MattChan> ... but different RS all do their own thing when faced with epub without pagelist
00:07:27 <MattChan> ... but that's not really something our WG can standardize
00:07:45 <MattChan> ... any further comments to bring us up to speed?
00:08:11 <MattChan> wendyreid: we've had a lot of feedback from RS side, i.e. from Hadrien
00:08:33 <MattChan> ... but does the utility of standardizing outweigh the difficulty?
00:08:51 <MattChan> rob smith: we have our own RS as part of our web platform, so we understand the difficulty
00:08:57 <dauwhe> q?
00:09:22 <MattChan> ... in our market, page nums and addressable locations are critical for academic citations
00:09:26 <shiestyle> q+
00:09:38 <duga> q+
00:09:39 <MattChan> ... our buyers prefer PDF because of the predictable page numbers
00:10:20 <dauwhe> ack shi
00:10:20 <MattChan> ... if you're using epub without page numbers, the risk of plagiarism is higher because its harder to precisely locate citations
00:10:44 <MattChan> shiestyle addresses our Japanese members in Japanese
00:12:23 <wendyreid> q+
00:12:33 <MattChan> shiestyle: toshiakikoike from Voyager (a jp RS) says that it is difficult to implement these features
00:12:43 <MattChan> ... TOC serves a similar use case
00:13:18 <MattChan> rob smith: I don't think a toc is suitable substitution
00:13:34 <MattChan> ... the toc is too sparse for a book of, say, 300 pages
00:13:47 <dlazin> q+
00:13:57 <MattChan> ... the technical limitations are clear, but maybe we could have some sort of a non-normative recommendation?
00:14:19 <dauwhe> ack duga
00:14:35 <mgarrish> q+
00:14:40 <MattChan> duga: we already have pagelists so the publishers can implement that
00:14:50 <MattChan> ... the question is what the RS should do in the absence of pagelist
00:14:58 <MattChan> ... to provide consistent virtual page numbers
00:15:11 <dauwhe> ack wen
00:15:13 <MattChan> dauwhe: yes that's it, but what steps should we take to get there?
00:15:51 <MattChan> wendyreid: i think one of the struggles is we technically have pagelist as an established method of doing this, but obviously its either not enough or there is something about it not meeting the need
00:16:32 <dauwhe> q+
00:16:37 <MattChan> ... maybe we could use something else as a kind of standardized, periodic locator?
00:17:00 <MattChan> ... this may fall under best practices, but it seems there is a clear desire for a standardized practice
00:17:05 <dauwhe> ack dl
00:17:26 <MattChan> dlazin: it seems that page numbers specifically are an artifact of printed books
00:17:37 <MattChan> ... in a lot of cases we want to preserve that correspondence to print
00:17:45 <MattChan> ... but there are other ways to locate inside a book
00:17:59 <MattChan> ... but also RSes have implemented their own solutions
00:18:18 <MattChan> ... so, as an alternative, we could use, for example, paragraph numbering (i.e. what legal texts do)
00:18:25 <dauwhe> ack mg
00:18:30 <MattChan> ... this wouldn't interfere with the existing page number system
00:19:01 <MattChan> mgarrish: what George was looking at was an algorithm for inserting page numbers automatically
00:19:27 <MattChan> ... but maybe this is a task for a separate taskforce, with the goal of creating a note or something
00:19:29 <dauwhe> ack da
00:19:39 <MattChan> ... rather than using our call time to do this
00:20:02 <MattChan> dauwhe: it doesn't feel realistic to me to expect RS to change their existing way of doing things
00:20:17 <MattChan> ... e.g. ibooks will count the number of screens and repaginate for font size
00:20:24 <MattChan> ... and that goes against what a lot of other people want
00:21:03 <MattChan> ... it seems possible that we could come up with a tool to do a thing to epubs and produce a pagelist from that in the absence of a pre-prepared one
00:21:21 <MattChan> ... maybe a TF or the CG would like to take a shot at this
00:21:36 <wendyreid> q+
00:21:49 <MattChan> ... changing RS behaviour is kind of outside spec
00:22:04 <MattChan> ... but we could experiment with that tool as something to help out content creators
00:22:08 <dauwhe> ack we
00:22:22 <MattChan> wendyreid: i think a TF is a good idea
00:22:54 <MattChan> ... agreed that we probably won't change behaviour for major RSes
00:23:00 <MattChan> ... its an industry thing
00:23:07 <dauwhe> q?
00:23:38 <MattChan> ... trade publishers probably won't be as interested in this as educational side (VitalSource, Ebsco, etc.)
00:23:58 <MattChan> ... we could well get implementors of this from the right crowd of publishers
00:24:53 <MattChan> dauwhe: does anyone want to try to put together a little script?
00:25:28 <MattChan> ... okay, we'll put together a task for to do these experiments
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00:25:35 <MattChan> Topic: Normative Schemas
00:25:36 <dauwhe> https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/issues/1566
00:26:06 <MattChan> dauwhe: the quick summary is that epub has historically had some normative schemas
00:26:23 <MattChan> ... i think it would be a good idea to change to say that the spec is normative, and that any references to spec are informative only
00:26:31 <MattChan> mgarrish: that's part of it
00:26:58 <MattChan> ... Ivan particularly didn't like that we were referencing across to epubcheck repo
00:27:33 <MattChan> ... basically the PR that we have open now makes that schema section informative, and adds some description boxes to things we hadn't previously defined
00:27:59 <wendyreid> https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/pull/1573
00:28:30 <wendyreid> Proposal: Accept PR 1573
00:28:43 <BenSchroeter> +1
00:28:43 <mgarrish> +1
00:28:47 <toshiakikoike> +1
00:28:47 <MattChan> +1
00:28:51 <MasakazuKitahara> +1
00:28:51 <wendyreid> +1
00:28:53 <duga> +1
00:29:08 <wendyreid> Resolved: Accept PR 1573
00:29:12 <MattChan> dauwhe: this makes the distinction between spec and epubcheck clearer, which seems good for everyone
00:29:16 <shiestyle> +1
00:29:35 <dauwhe> https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/issues/1564
00:29:36 <MattChan> Topic: Data URLs
00:29:58 <MattChan> dauwhe: where should data URLs be allowed in epub?
00:30:15 <MattChan> ... seems to make sense that they shouldn't be allowed in <a> that are not spine elements
00:30:29 <MattChan> ... there are some interesting uses of data urls in CSS (e.g. for backgrounds)
00:30:53 <dauwhe> q?
00:30:59 <MattChan> ... so where are these okay, and where shouldn't they be okay?
00:31:21 <MattChan> mgarrish: if we allow them to be embedded, basically, we still can check if they are core media types
00:31:31 <MattChan> ... so we still have a sense of what they are
00:32:09 <MattChan> ... if they aren't core media types, you can't really provide a fallback to data URL, so they would be disallowed that way
00:32:25 <MattChan> ... i have no particular issue with the embedding part
00:32:32 <duga> q+
00:32:40 <MattChan> ... but the <a> part opens security issues
00:33:19 <MattChan> dauwhe: so is it good enough to forbid the <a> useage, but to allow as embedded resource? Would that break epub check?
00:33:25 <MattChan> mgarrish: that would be possible
00:33:48 <dauwhe> ack du
00:34:00 <MattChan> duga: i don't think we spec away the security issues here
00:34:28 <MattChan> ... i agree that not putting data urls in your <a> is good, and that RS should ignore them and not do anything
00:34:36 <MattChan> ... if we do spec something, what do we tell RS to do?
00:34:53 <MattChan> ... this seems more like a comment to authors that they shouldn't do this thing
00:35:13 <MattChan> dauwhe: the problem is that i want this in epub check, and to do that we need the spec to say something
00:35:25 <mgarrish> q+
00:35:27 <MattChan> ... by putting it in epub check many fewer RSes will have to deal with this at all
00:35:46 <dauwhe> ack mg
00:35:50 <MattChan> ... can we just say that "RS must not perform navigation"?
00:35:56 <MattChan> mgarrish: do we have to spec out what the RS does?
00:36:40 <MattChan> duga: i'm okay putting this in just for epub check purposes...
00:37:01 <MattChan> dauwhe: and i'm okay writing a test for it, e.g. an RS fails if it tries to follow the <a>
00:37:43 <MattChan> ... can we resolve on this?
00:39:01 <dauwhe> Proposal: embedded Data URLs are OK, but data URLs in <a> are forbidden; reading systems must not navigate to such URLs.
00:39:23 <wendyreid> +1
00:39:26 <toshiakikoike> +1
00:39:27 <duga> +1
00:39:30 <MasakazuKitahara> +1
00:39:33 <MattChan> +1
00:39:43 <MattChan> dauwhe: is the link element an issue here?
00:40:14 <MattChan> mgarrish: i wouldn't think that it would matter, because there is no requirement for the RS to do anything
00:40:18 <BenSchroeter> 0
00:40:38 <MattChan> duga: what about in SVGs?
00:40:58 <MattChan> wendyreid: we'll do some research
00:42:22 <MattChan> mgarrish: i can take a look at it, yes
00:42:23 <dauwhe> Resolved: embedded Data URLs are OK, but data URLs in <a> are forbidden; reading systems must not navigate to such URLs.
00:42:45 <MattChan> Topic: TAG Explainer
00:43:00 <dauwhe> https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/pull/1521
00:43:22 <MattChan> dauwhe: I haven't really worked on this in a while, but there are a bunch of edits still to be made based on Ivan's comments
00:43:35 <MattChan> ... if anybody else here has anything to add, that would be okay
00:43:42 <MattChan> ... otherwise, let's just defer this?
00:44:24 <MattChan> wendyreid: this PR is for an explainer that we submit to TAG alongside spec
00:44:46 <MattChan> dauwhe: its mostly about security and privacy issues
00:45:24 <MattChan> ... after I make the edits for Ivan's comments into it, we're going to need input from everyone
00:45:45 <MattChan> duga: yes, I can take a look
00:46:10 <MattChan> s/comments into it/comments
00:46:33 <MattChan> wendyreid: we're got significantly fewer open issues!
00:46:42 <MattChan> s/we're got/we've got
00:46:57 <MattChan> ... there's been a little bit of discussion about the fxl a11y stuff
00:47:06 <MattChan> dauwhe: Ken wrote a document about that
00:47:34 <wendyreid> https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/wiki/Fixed-Layout-Accessibility
00:47:57 <MattChan> wendyreid: this doc is a collection of some of the proposals we've gathered about FXL a11y
00:48:05 <MattChan> ... won't be part of spec
00:48:11 <MattChan> ... falls more under best practice
00:48:19 <MattChan> ... will probably end up as a note of some kind
00:48:29 <MattChan> ... encourage anyone with interest to comment
00:48:45 <MattChan> ... will probably have a meeting to discuss this, or a separate TF
00:49:07 <MattChan> ... and we should start talking about a virtual face-to-face soon
00:49:30 <dauwhe> Ken Jones doc on FXL A11Y https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Accessibility-in-Fixed-Layout-EPUB-3il8mlIqLpUfHHhcZEmgy
00:49:41 <MattChan> dauwhe: George and Ben have posted about FXL a11y to email thread
00:50:09 <MattChan> wendyreid: we're also thinking of doing a special session about scripting in epub
00:50:26 <MattChan> ... hash out scripting-specific issues
00:50:47 <MattChan> ... this would be more open, so that we could have RS and production people who aren't in the WG participate
00:51:18 <MattChan> dauwhe: okay thanks everyone, it feels like we've made some progress today
00:51:41 <MattChan> ... and remember this call's time is pinned to JP time, but other call time is pinned to MIT campus
00:51:53 <MattChan> ... so this call time has shifted for daylight savings, but other one has not
00:52:13 <MattChan> wendyreid: and everyone should have received calendar invites via email
00:52:18 <MattChan> ... with the correct times
00:52:31 <MattChan> dauwhe: we'll talk to you soon!
00:52:36 <dauwhe> Zakim, end meeting
00:52:36 <Zakim> As of this point the attendees have been MasakazuKitahara, toshiakikoike, MattChan, wendyreid, duga, shiestyle, BenSchroeter, mgarrish
00:52:38 <Zakim> RRSAgent, please draft minutes
00:52:38 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2021/03/18-epub-minutes.html Zakim
00:52:41 <Zakim> I am happy to have been of service, dauwhe; please remember to excuse RRSAgent.  Goodbye
00:52:45 <Zakim> Zakim has left #epub
00:53:22 <dauwhe> RRSAgent: bye
00:53:22 <RRSAgent> I see no action items