[A few here may be interested in the following I just posted to The
eBook Community. This thread has been kept separate from the TeBC
thread. Note, yesterday I published a TeleRead blog article covering
topics related to this thread. See: http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5067 ]


Ben Trafford wrote:
> Bill Janssen wrote:

>> I was just looking at the IDPF page called "Use Cases and Requirements
>> for Next Version of the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS)" (at
>> http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/informationaldocs/oebps_requirements.htm).
>> I noticed that their schedule called for a meeting last week: "The
>> Working Group will meet at a face to face meeting on June 20th and
>> 21st in New York City to present and select technologies to satisfy
>> the following requirements."
>>
>> Does anyone know if anything came of this?

I was unable to attend the F2F (face-to-face) meeting, neither in
person nor by teleconference, but did submit some comments prior to
the F2F on a couple topics. (I'm an "invited expert" to the group.)
Garth Conboy, the chair of the OEBPS WG, just sent out the minutes
plus a first "working document" which resulted from the decisions made
at the F2F. However, that information has not yet been made public.

Overall, and *at first glance only*, I'm comfortable with most of the
decisions that were made at the F2F. I'm happy for the acknowledgement
of the importance, and preservation, of out-of-spine content. I'm also
happy that the DTBook document type has been accepted as an
alternative content document vocabulary, although there no doubt needs
to be some integration work (OpenReader plans to support the same
document type now that the fundamental architecture is in place to
readily allow multiple vocabularies.) The embracement of the NCX (the
DAISY navigation control file) is also good, although for the long-term
I think the OpenReader approach is technically superior and more
flexible and will work for the accessibility community (it, too, could
no doubt be improved.)

By and the large, OEBPS will be updated, but it does trouble me that
these changes are being done sort of like adding after-market parts to
a car. I really believe the time should have been spent to revitalize
the OEBPS 2.0 effort, to update the Roadmap, and then to work on the
next-generation first, which will erect a good base upon which to
build the spec for the next decade.

Or, if the only intent was to "modernize" the current OEBPS 1.2, the
changes should have been smaller, meaning the new spec could've been
released in as little as 2 months, which would have speeded things up
and got something the ebook industry could use. There's no compelling
need to have SVG and embedded fonts *today*.


> No idea, but I find their requirements document opaque and
> unreadable. Nothing is explained. Bullet points do not provide for an
> informative document.

I've thought, too, that the OEBPS WG charter is too vague.

It also does not properly acknowledge that the original PSWG Roadmap
(developed from 2000 to 2003) was to be the starting point for all new
work. In essence, the PSWG Roadmap has been quietly tossed aside
without much discussion, and nothing has been put in its place.

How can one make decisions for the short-term without a longer-term
vision and plan? You *can't*, yet that is what OEBPS WG is chartered
to do.

The decision of what items to add to OEBPS was done essentially
arbitrarily (although Garth might disagree) based on the request of,
I surmise, Adobe (they are definitely hot-to-trot to get both embedded
fonts and SVG in the spec, which is a good idea to do *at the right
time*, but adding those should have come *after* a comprehensive
evaluation and updating/amendment of the Roadmap. "A" must come
before "B".)

I know several of the PSWG old-timers were and are quite perturbed on
how the OEBPS WG charter was created and approved, as well as
wondering why the original PSWG was dechartered -- no reason was ever
publicly given. They should have simply revived PSWG. It would have
maintained better continuity with the past, even if perceptual.

It is indicative that very few of the quite active PSWG old-timers are
still around contributing to the new OEBPS spec: those still here
include Garth Conboy, Brady Duga (Garth and Brady come as a team
<smile/>), Steve Kotrch, George Kerscher, and yours truly. There were
quite a few other PSWGers who made substantive and even major
contributions to the original OEBPS who are no longer around -- a few
of them are thoroughly disillusioned, to put it mildly, by the lack
of support of standards work by OeBF (formerly IDPF) back in 2002-3.
They don't want to have anything to do with anything "ebook", not even
OpenReader.

That's a *huge* waste of great talent that was blown off by a lack
of vision and bad policies in 2002-3. By and large, the same
leadership that ran OeBF then is still leading IDPF today, so their
sincerity of catching of "standards religion" is certainly questionable.


>> By the way, what do people think of IDPF as a representative standards
>> body in this area? Just looking at their membership rolls
>> (http://www.idpf.org/membership/currentmembers.asp), it seems a pretty
>> reasonable mix of publishers and technologists, along with a few
>> outliers (like the Boy Scouts of America).

> I have the same issues with IDPF that I had with OEBF back
> when I was on that body's board of directors. It's not open enough.
> Why are we forced to sit in the dark, waiting for the wisdom from on
> high? Where is the public review of specifications? This ebook
> community here could operate much like the XML-DEV mailing list did
> for XML, back in the day. It could be a place to get ideas outside of
> the box and to really let people have a good stab at the problems
> with the standards they're proposing.

Well, there is supposedly a new commitment to openness, but this
requires not only lip service, but action as well. The action to open
up all deliberations is slow to be enabled. First, the current OEBPS
WG mailing list is still operated internally to IDPF (thus requiring
someone at IDPF to babysit it), and as such does not yet have a
searchable, public archive. The discussion group should be moved as
soon as possible to a publicly open YahooGroup or GoogleGroup, where
everything is archived and publicly searchable, and files can also be
shared.

Why IDPF does not take advantage of external resources to enable
openness, and instead does things all internally (which costs $$$ and
time, mostly Nick's time which is better spent doing something else),
is beyond me. Nick, are you reading this?


> As it is? The only reason I don't toss rocks at IDPF from
> afar is because of the respect I have for people like Garth Conboy. I
> really wish they'd open up more, and really work at a little more
> public outreach. Putting up press releases on their website isn't
> enough. There needs to be community involvement; ebooks are not so
> advanced that grassroots work is out of the question.

Yes, there are individuals still associated with IDPF who I highly
respect, and this includes, among a few others, Garth, Brady (the
dynamic duo), Nick Bogaty, and George Kerscher who still hangs
around IDPF (although he was defeated when he ran again for the
Board, which is a tragedy.) But there are institutional issues.

Fortunately, too, IDPF has relaxed their policy regarding invited
experts, but they are not making any effort to recruit outside
tech-types to contribute to the specs.

I really do think IDPF should spin off its spec effort to OASIS,
for several reasons I won't get into here (I make the same call in the
TeleRead blog article I posted yesterday -- see link below.)

Jon Noring


[Note, yesterday I published a TeleRead blog article covering topics
related to this thread. See: http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5067 ]