The publishing industry has been watching from the sidelines for the better half of a year, waiting to see what will happen to the IDPF’s proposed merger with the W3C. The International Digital Publishing Forum called for a member vote about a proposed merger with the WorldWide Web Consortium back at 2016 BookExpo/IDPF event. That proposal was immediately met with opposition from a number of publishing entities, most notably Steve Potash of OverDrive. The IDPF countered that the vote was not akin to the merger, but more of an interest survey. Later, the IDPF announced that the vote was in favor of a merger, and therefore, they would move forward with the plan. Again, OverDrive strenuously voiced its concerns, namely that the flagship of digital publishing - the ePub standard - would no longer be in the hands of the publishing industry but would instead fall under a company that handles lots of web-related standards.
Category: Articles
Click here