Re: Open E-Book?

[Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com>]

>>>>> "jd" == Poet/Joshua Drake <poet@linuxports.com> writes:

    jd> Take a look at this: http://www.openebook.org/OEB1.html

    jd> Let us know your thoughts

I got as far as

    Please be advised that this work is protected under Title 17 of
    the United States Code. Reproduction or dissemination of this work
    with changes is prohibited except with the express permission of
    the authors.

Which made me wonder how 'open' the rest of it might be.  I'm not
certain about Title 17, but since my cache was making a digital copy,
I thought it best to stop ... and before I could halt it, I did get
as far as the authors, which shows pretty heavy representation by
Microsoft (3 times as many as any other vendor)

Considering the sponsor, and that this sponsor has already announced
an intention to deviate from any XML standards in order to ensure their
control over the dissemination of this material, my gut reaction to this
is to stay away --- their objective is obviously to create a means to
transport books which will be the sole proprietary domain of Microsoft
and at their whims as to who will be distributed and who will not.  It
makes me highly suspect of the claims that the standard will be "open"
and adhere to all industry specs for XML &c &c.

Sounds to me like the browser wars all over again.

-- 
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@linux.ca>: office voice/fax: 01 519 4222723
TCI - Business Innovations through Open Source : http://www.teledyn.com
Canadian Co-ordinators for Bynari International : http://ca.bynari.net/
Moderator, Linux Education Group: http://www.egroups.com/group/linux-ed


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