Hi,
The SVG Working Group will be holding a face-to-face meeting in Sydney at the beginning of February. I know we've discussed funding SVG Working Group travel through dedicated fund raising but as that system is not yet functional (and as we've been quite successful in raising funds the past two years) I would like to see how board members feel about my asking for funding to travel to this meeting.
The SVG 2 specification is firming up. The one big section that still needs work is the text chapter. The major difficulty here is the need to interface to all the relevant CSS text specifications, some of which are not very far advanced. I've got a ton of issues that need addressing. At the Sydney meeting there will be a one day joint meeting with the CSS working group. Being able to sit down with the CSS people is the best way of making progress.
I've been doing most of the work for the text section. I've had some help from another group member but he's in the process of ramping down his participation in the working group. The Sydney meeting is likely the last meeting he'll attend.
I estimate the cost for attending the Sydney meeting to be about the same as last year: a bit under $2500 (I was reimbursed $2250 last year).
Last year's Sydney meeting was very successful from our perspective. One can read my report at: http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?m=201502%C2%A0 This year's meeting will be more on dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's as we try to get the spec out the door.
BTW, as I work on the spec, I've also been working on Inkscape's text rendering. I've recently fixed some issues with vertical text as well as issues with multi-line text. I've also implemented the new 'text- orientation' attribute and there is a rendering only implementation of SVG 2.0 wrapped text.
Tav