EPUB 3 Working Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2023-01-27

Attendees

Present: Wendy Reid, Tzviya Siegman, Shinya Takami (高見真也), Matthew Chan, Dave Cramer, John Foliot, Gregorio Pellegrino, Charles LaPierre, Avneesh Singh, Brady Duga, Bill Kasdorf, David Hall, John Roque, Murata Makoto, Matt Garrish

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair:

Scribe(s): Matthew Chan

Wendy Reid: welcome all. There’s a couple of things to do in this meeting. One is about whether to publish according to living standard vs old standard..
… next is whether to send to ISO for publication.
… finally, voting to go to PR status.
… we will vote on that today, but will not resolve today, as not all members are present. We will extend vote over to Tues of next week, allowing additional members to vote via email.
… i hope everyone got a chance to review the documents. This is your change to raise any concerns/questions before we go to PR. Please speak now, we will not be able to make further changes after we move to PR.

John Foliot: will those other items be agenda-ed?.
… like, to be discussed presently?.

Wendy Reid: ask away!

1. Metadata for a11y certifier report

John Foliot: re. metadata for a11y certifier report. I’m finding some unanswered questions. Where does it live? Is there a template for reporting?.
… i don’t need answers today, but I am looking for some clarification. It seems to have been purposefully left undefined.

Wendy Reid: AvneeshSingh, gpellegrino?.

Avneesh Singh: we decided that it should not be defined in that document. Different parts of the world have different reporting requirements - e.g. local regulations.

Gregorio Pellegrino: we have a requirement that the certifier report is a URL, but we don’t say what should be displayed at that URL.
… but we can share what we are doing in ITA.

John Foliot: when you specify the URL, is it a fully resolved URL? Implied URL? Could the report be inside the epub wrapper?.
… maybe avoid security concerns around pointing links inside epub to external servers by doing this?.
… i’m looking to implement this piece of the puzzle, and finding lots of unanswered questions.

Dave Cramer: we are saying that if there is a report, this is how you can link to it in metadata.
… its up to RS whether to present this info to user. Probably more likely that it will be processed during ingest, and display to user earlier.
… but the format of the report is likely outside of scope. Don’t want to specify before its something that becomes wildly used.
… and answers about format may be different for different content.

Bill Kasdorf: for example, Benetech provides a GCA certification. We don’t want to tell Benetech what to do in their certification.

Charles LaPierre: we have our own reports, and so far publishers have elected not to have those reports shared with the public.
… we are toying with a certifier report at a higher level for each publisher, but this is ongoing.

Bill Kasdorf: and its up to you to figure out how that’s going to work.

2. ISO

Brady Duga: i’d like to get back to the agenda-ed items if that okay.
… does the type of standard we adopt have an impact on ISO standardization. e.g. If we go living standard, will ISO still standardize us?.

John Foliot: I believe yes Brady - I suspect that ISO will not accept a “Living Standard”.

Wendy Reid: re. living standard, i don’t think it would be a problem for ISO. Living standard status still has a not-insignificant publishing process.
… it simplifies errata and editorial changes.
… in those cases, i’m not sure we would send to ISO.
… for level 3 and 4 changes (i.e. substantive changes) we’d still go through CR etc. Not a short process..
… and in that situation if we wanted to go back to ISO, we could. It would almost be a new version in that case.
… but i’m not an ISO expert.

Brady Duga: I thought the idea of living standard was that we could keep it at epub 3.3 even if we add features.
… the issue with living standard was that feature set could change, and you couldn’t rely on a version number.
… not sure if ISO had a requirement around that.

John Foliot: https://www.iso.org/standard/27688.html.

Wendy Reid: regardless of what is decided on this, new features in epub seem unlikely.

Brady Duga: not sure if that matters for ISO, its the rules.

Gregorio Pellegrino: there may be some problems with the Euro commission if we have epub as ISO. Cristina mentioned this a couple months ago..
… right now the Commission has said that epub a11y 1.1 is fine because it is in line with Euro A11y Act. We have to make sure that moving to ISO would not change this.

Avneesh Singh: PAS process is what w3 and ISO have agreed on. For small changes, this means that there will not be an issue. But for higher level changes, this could be more complicated.
… EU has set ISO as a harmonized standard. Highest level of standard. When this is the case, EU can accept it as is, or they can modify. This becomes a little political.

John Foliot: https://www.iso.org/standard/27688.html.

John Foliot: today the ISO standard for HTML was last finalized in 2017. No longer in lock step with standard produced by WHAT-WG.
… in the WCAG WG, when 2.0 was taken to ISO, there was a lot of work done to get it accepted. ISO hasn’t taken up 2.1 or 2.2.
… they are slower to adopt new standards.
… i’m concerned that they will be out of sync at some point in the future.
… in JP, JIS doesn’t recognize WCAG, and only points to ISO standards.
… when Makoto tries to promote newer ISO, he runs into resistance because of this.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): Makoto said that ISO standardization is a sort of a must, but JP publishers don’t think so.

John Foliot: +1 to Shinya.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): as Makoto explained, JIS points to ISO, which points to W3C. It’s a complicated situation, which can lead to fragmentation of standards.
… several JP publishers support my opinion.

Matt Garrish: we’re already way out of date with ISO, so this could possibly catch us up.

Tzviya Siegman: +1 mgarrish.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Matt Garrish: this route (PAS process) is a whole lot more simple than what we’ve done in the past.

Murata Makoto: Ivan knows the PAS process very well. It’s a very light-weight process..
… essentially cover page, and then it goes to balloting.
… if objections are raised at ISO, then we can withdraw our submission.

3. EPUB as living standard

Wendy Reid: after going through the process document, I think i’ve fallen on the side of not doing it for epub. (Through we did for pub manifest and audiobooks.).
… for those specs, we’d already published errata since they were young standards.

John Foliot: +1 to Wendy (ePub 3.3).

Wendy Reid: epub is different. If a new feature popped up, we’d have to go all the way back to working draft status, which means that’d we’d likely just make it a epub 3.4.
… publishers are slow to adopt changes to epub, so we’d want a longer process to allow us time to communicate the changes.
… if those features were significant enough that we want to go to ISO, that would give us time to do so.
… so I say let’s not be a living standard.

Charles LaPierre: that sounds good. I was thinking in the a11y metadata we have conformsTo with some ISO values. We should have some in the next ISO version of epub too.

Bill Kasdorf: i’m persuaded by what you were saying wendy, but if epub isn’t a living standard, doesn’t that mean that we are a non-living standard that is built on the HTML living standard? Is that fine?.

Dave Cramer: yes, that’s fine.

John Foliot: re. CharlesL’s comment, we might want to wait until WCAG 2.2 is finalized. 3-6 months. I agree with the idea though.
… even the discussion around HTML going to living standard was political. Browser vendors liked it because they could keep innovating, but it caused disruptions.

Brady Duga: for Makoto, do you believe that being a living standard would have an impact on the ISO process?.

Murata Makoto: there are no living standards in ISO. If you publish something new, you’d have to add an amendment.
… but ISO is fine with epub being a living standard.

Brady Duga: and is it fine to publish one part of the epub family of specs as living standard, but the rest old school?.

Wendy Reid: yes, that’s fine. And that’s up to us..
… it is really a matter of how likely you like substantial changes are, and how much time you want to spend on publishing those changes.

David Hall: if not living standard, does that change how we classify big vs small changes?.

Wendy Reid: those categories, e.g. errata vs substantive, are the same regardless.

Charles LaPierre: does that mean that the publish date would get bumped up too?.

Wendy Reid: yes.
… are there any other questions?.

Murata Makoto: the JP taskforce of the i18n WG raised concern of WCAG 2.2 to non-European languages.
… so i personally don’t want to wait for the completion of WCAG 2.2.

John Foliot: its going into PR.
… and if those comments aren’t being addressed, it won’t get out of PR.

Murata Makoto: that’s why I’m anticipating delays.

John Foliot: they’re hoping that it will be done in April, but we don’t know for sure.

Wendy Reid: we’ll watch that, but it doesn’t affect the publication of epub 3.3.

Avneesh Singh: that would only change the specific strings that are reference in the spec.

Matt Garrish: and even though those new versions of WCAG aren’t listed, it would still be valid to use those version numbers in the strings.

John Foliot: +1 to not being a Living Standard.

Brady Duga: when we vote on living standard, are we voting whether this is for all specs in family?.

Wendy Reid: okay, we can break it out.
… is there any opposition to none of them being living standards?.
… or have I read the room wrong?.

Brady Duga: you have convinced me that old school works best for everything except a11y.

John Foliot: -1 to LS on a11y.

4. Resolutions.

Dave Cramer: can we get a resolution on the two core specs first, as it seems we have consensus on that?.

Proposed resolution: EPUB 3.3 and EPUB Reading Systems 3.3 will be published using the old process, they are not living standards. (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1.

Charles LaPierre: +1.

Tzviya Siegman: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

David Hall: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

John Foliot: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Avneesh Singh: +1.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

John Roque: +1.

Wendy Reid: okay, thank you everyone.

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1.

Proposed resolution: EPUB Accessibility 1.1 will be published as a living standard, according to the new process (accepts new changes). (Wendy Reid)

Tzviya Siegman: +1.

Avneesh Singh: -1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): -1.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Dave Cramer: 0.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

Matt Garrish: 0.

Charles LaPierre: -1.

Matthew Chan: 0.

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1-1.

John Foliot: STRONG -1 (WCAG 2.x is NOT a Living Standard and we should not go there).

Gregorio Pellegrino: -1.

John Roque: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Gregorio Pellegrino: mine is a zero.

Avneesh Singh: epub accessibility is becoming a part of legislation in many countries, and making it a living standard weakens that legislation.

Matt Garrish: +1 to Avneesh.

Dave Cramer: changing my vote from 0 to -1.

John Foliot: +1 to Avneesh.

Avneesh Singh: take, for example, the mapping that gpellegrino did between epub a11y and EU A11y Act.

Bill Kasdorf: Persuaded by Avneesh, changing my vote to -1.

Charles LaPierre: +1 to Avneesh.

Murata Makoto: -1 (changing my vote).

Brady Duga: i don’t think that in reality this is a concern, except that politicians need things made simple. So you’re probably right.

Tzviya Siegman: wendyreid i think you said that we can version living standards? If we can, then I’m not sure that its really a problem..
… however, living standard does sound more confusing to anyone not part of the process.

Bill Kasdorf: would there be chartering changes in a living standard?.

Wendy Reid: no.

John Foliot: i believe the answer is that there are no “.x” versions. So tracking to a specific version is more complicated..

Proposed resolution: EPUB Accessibility 1.1 will be published using the old process, it will not be a living standard. (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1.

Charles LaPierre: +1.

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Avneesh Singh: +1.

John Foliot: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

John Roque: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Tzviya Siegman: 0.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

Proposed resolution: EPUB 3.3, EPUB Reading Systems 3.3, and EPUB Accessibility 1.1 will be sent to ISO using the PAS process once published as recommendations. (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

Charles LaPierre: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): -1.

Brady Duga: +1.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Tzviya Siegman: +1.

John Foliot: +1.

John Roque: +1.

Gregorio Pellegrino: -1.

Avneesh Singh: gpellegrino has mentioned that Cristina has additional input on this resolution. And she is not here in the call with us.

Wendy Reid: this will not be finalized today. I will alert the WG via an email that they have until next Tuesday to vote via email.
… is the objection to sending epub a11y to ISO only? Or core?.

Gregorio Pellegrino: only a11y.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): all.

Brady Duga: it seems that JP publishers don’t care about ISO, but the JP government might. If the JP government wants to legislate something related to epub, would they reference the ancient epub spec at ISO?.
… if its trivial to do this PAS process, and it makes it more simple for politicians, then maybe it makes sense.

Murata Makoto: I don’t believe the JP government would reference W3 as more than a non-normative reference. They care about ISO.

Proposed resolution: Send EPUB 3.3 to Proposed Recommendation status (PR). (Wendy Reid)

Matt Garrish: +1.

Tzviya Siegman: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Charles LaPierre: +1.

Dave Cramer: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

John Foliot: +1 (and YAY! Bravo).

Brady Duga: +1.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

John Roque: +1.

Avneesh Singh: +1.

Proposed resolution: Send EPUB Reading Systems 3.3 to Proposed Recommendation status (PR). (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1.

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Tzviya Siegman: +1.

Charles LaPierre: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

David Hall: +1.

John Foliot: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

John Roque: +1.

Avneesh Singh: +1.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Tzviya Siegman: 🍾.

Proposed resolution: Send EPUB Accessibility 1.1 to Proposed Recommendation status (PR). (Wendy Reid)

Charles LaPierre: +1.

Murata Makoto: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Dave Cramer: +1.

John Foliot: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1.

Tzviya Siegman: +1.

Bill Kasdorf: +1.

Avneesh Singh: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

John Roque: +1.

Tzviya Siegman: 🎈.

Gregorio Pellegrino: rock’n’roll!.

Wendy Reid: thank you!.
… I will alert the WG via email of the work we did today. If you have opposition, please respond via email with clarifications about your concerns.

Charles LaPierre: Huge thanks to all, chairs, editors, Ivan and all!.