The W3C Publishing Business Group is now live

As a result of the IDPF-W3C combination, and after the setup of the EPUB Community Group (see our previous post), the Publishing Business Group is now live. Its mission is to foster ongoing participation by members of the publishing industry and overall ecosystem.

Participation to this group requires W3C membership, especially the special status created for the ex-IDPF members called W3C TPI members (TPI standing for Transitional Publishing Industry). This is in practice the vehicle by which the publishing industry will keep some control on the future of the EPUB format.

As its charter indicates, this group is critical to the future of EPUB as it will especially:

• approve the requests of the EPUB Community Group relative to the maintenance of EPUB 3.
• co-develop (with the “Digital Publishing Interest Group” or DPUB-IG, i.e. the tech experts) the charter of the Publishing Working Group, which is in charge of the development of PWP (Packaged Web Publications) and the future EPUB 4;