http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-apple-is-sabotaging-an-open-standard-for-digital-books/4378?tag=nl.e539

I think he is over-stating the case but the core idea isn't wrong.
More important, though; they *will* get away with it and there is nothing <idpf> will do about it.

Not. A. Thing.

That message is now out in the wild.

ePub3 brings a lot of useful stuff (and a few nasty surprises) and is going to be the core format internal to the BPHs, but there literally is nothing to prevent retailers (or other publishers) from embracing and extending it to serve their specific agendas, especially in asia and other protectionist markets.

Let a thousand (incompatible) epubs bloom. :rolleyes:

This is what lack of enforcement brings.

And that's what overreaction brings... just because Apple have released a new authoring package hasn't mystically destroyed all other current methods of authoring... if you don't like it, don't use it but stop behaving like yo-yos because Apple has released a tool and format variations that favour... wow, Apple's products... :smack: It doesn't stop you doing what you did before, it just adds another alternative...

And see http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166506

That isn't the point.
The point is that what Apple does, hundreds copy.

Wait a bit and watch what Rakuten does. What the chinese publishers do.
What happens in South Korea and Brazil and India.
This is about the entire ebook market, not the chunk Apple may or not control.

Embrace and extend is going to be a lot more tempting paradigm to players looking for ways to compete with Apple and Amazon.

ePub3 brings a lot of useful stuff (and a few nasty surprises) and is going to be the core format internal to the BPHs, but there literally is nothing to prevent retailers (or other publishers) from embracing and extending it to serve their specific agendas, especially in asia and other protectionist markets.

Let a thousand (incompatible) epubs bloom. :rolleyes:

This is what lack of enforcement brings.

Apple do not claim that the files that iBooks Author produces are "ePub" files. There's nothing to enforce.

Storm, meet teacup.

Apple do not claim that the files that iBooks Author produces are "ePub" files. There's nothing to enforce.

Storm, meet teacup.

Never mind HarryT, I give up... facts are a waste of time and effort on these forums, attacks and rumours go much better... :smack:

This is no more (or less) embracing and extending ePub3 than Amazon's new KF8 format it.

What is the IDPF supposed to do about it? Is there a license which precludes anyone from forking ePub in this manner?

As long as they don't call it ePub I don't really care that much.

They should change the text on their site to reflect that they use a format derived from ePub but that's about it.

What is the IDPF supposed to do about it? Is there a license which precludes anyone from forking ePub in this manner?

No. And that is the problem.
Apple has in fact been producing and selling non-compliant epubs since they first set up iBooks. With no consequences.
What they're doing now is simply saying they have no intention of *ever* being compatible. As of now, iBook files are *officially* whatever Apple says they are. Just like Kindle books are whatever Amazon says and Kobo books are whatever *they* say.

Now, Apple (and Amazon) have every right to do this; that is why I said its not about Apple. There are many valid business reasons to do it, thich is why I said the article was overstating it. Apple isn't sabotaging epub as much as undercutting its "universal format" message; saying the emperor is buck nekkid.

The point to me is that the epub "standard" being undercut by a company that still gives lip service to supporting it (unlike Amazon, who have never disguised their indiference) is something to pay attention to.

Dunno if you remember the copy-protected music Discs of a few years back that the guardians of the CD standard hit with a cease-and-desist notice on calling their discs "CD" and denying them the uuse of the trademark and logo. Or Sun's suing MS over J++ and its claims of Java compatibility.
That is how proper standards are defended.

As of now, epub support simply means the app can open an epub file and display...something...

Until now these implementation consistency issues have generally been seen as growing pains of an immature spec and that over time they would get settled as epub use became universal.

What the ZDNet report suggests, though, is that epub implementation consistency issues aren't going away--they are being institutionalized by Apple and whoever chooses to follow their example.

The question that now faces all of us epub users is how many other ebook vendors are going to follow Apple's example and what it means to the epub3 transition.

I don't think this is trivial; the BPHs still see Apple as their biggest defense against "Amazon domination". That means the top ebook vendor and its most prominent challenger, worldwide, are both proprietary. And the next best ePub "knight", Kobo, has a tarnished record themselves. Come the transition to ePub3, they might decide to standardize on a kepub variant. The epub3 forking is not going to stop with Apple, guys...

Like the ZDNet guys, I have seen this *before* in other technology markets. The closest parallel right now is Engineering Workstations, where UNIX (In a variety of theoretically-compatible implementations) was once the annointed standard and the multivariate forks and the infighting over which Unix was holiest allowed Microsoft to get in the market with Windows NT and eventally squeeze most UNIX workstations out of the engineering market.

One more time: epub needs a coherent *consumer-level* story if it is going to remain relevant as a commercial consumer ebook format. And the time to get the story straight is running out.

If anyone has sabotaged ePub it's the IDPF themselves.

No. And that is the problem.
Sounds like no one put any legal restraints on forking ePub. If so, then no one should be surprised if someone forks ePub for their own purposes.


Dunno if you remember the copy-protected music Discs of a few years back that the guardians of the CD standard hit with a cease-and-desist notice on calling their discs "CD" and denying them the uuse of the trademark and logo. Or Sun's suing MS over J++ and its claims of Java compatibility.
That is how proper standards are defended.
Those were/are both proprietary standards.

If you want to use Red Book (the CD standard), you need to license it from Philips. Java was proprietary until 2006, and they sued MS in 2002.

Not to mention that vendors have used incompatible DRM mechanisms on various ePubs for a long time now.

I don't see the big deal, I never intend to buy a Kindle or an Apple anything so whatever they do, won't impact me.

All big companies want to be the only game in town, what they don't realize is that someone is ALWAYS going to go their own way to offer us more choices So long as I have a choice on where I spend my money, the rest of this BS is unimportant.

Dunno if you remember the copy-protected music Discs of a few years back that the guardians of the CD standard hit with a cease-and-desist notice on calling their discs "CD" and denying them the uuse of the trademark and logo. Or Sun's suing MS over J++ and its claims of Java compatibility.

Have Apple ever said that iBook files were ePub compatible?
Not just the new iBook2 format, but ever?

iBooks itself is even more dangerous to writers than anything Apple could do to the epub standard. Read this:

zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360

That does it. I knew Apple is greedy and arrogant, but this beats anything I've ever read with regard to a software EULA, bar none. Now I won't even consider their products ever again.

iBooks itself is even more dangerous to writers than anything Apple could do to the epub standard. Read this:

zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360

That does it. I knew Apple is greedy and arrogant, but this beats anything I've ever read with regard to a software EULA, bar none. Now I won't even consider their products ever again.

I'm sorry, but I don't see the problem.

This is free software for producing books specifically for the iBooks application. Apple are (very reasonably, to my mind) saying that if you choose to sell the resulting book, you must do so via the iBookstore. If you wish to give it away, you can freely do so. Similarly, if you export your file in another format, such as PDF, you can do whatever you wish with that.

Really, what's all the fuss about?

I'm sorry, but I don't see the problem.

This is free software for producing books specifically for the iBooks application. Apple are (very reasonably, to my mind) saying that if you choose to sell the resulting book, you must do so via the iBookstore. If you wish to give it away, you can freely do so. Similarly, if you export your file in another format, such as PDF, you can do whatever you wish with that.


But the exported version was still "work" and you could not sell it if you had submitted the book to iBooks.

I'm sorry, but I don't see the problem.

This is free software for producing books specifically for the iBooks application. Apple are (very reasonably, to my mind) saying that if you choose to sell the resulting book, you must do so via the iBookstore. If you wish to give it away, you can freely do so. Similarly, if you export your file in another format, such as PDF, you can do whatever you wish with that.

Really, what's all the fuss about?

This:

The program allows you to export your work as plain text, with all formatting stripped. So you do have the option to take the formatting work you did in iBooks Author, throw it away, and start over. That is a devastating potential limitation for an author/publisher. Outputting as PDF would preserve the formatting, but again the license would appear to prohibit you from selling that work, because it was generated by iBooks Author.

it's idiotic. It is the same as Parker Pens (Apple) saying that a book written with one of their pens (iBooks) may only be sold in officially approved Parker stores (iStore), and that Parker (Apple) has the right to take the work out of print, or even reject it for release, if they so please.

Or, as a photographer, you would need to sell your wedding shoot through the Adobe store to the happy pair, and that Adobe can decide that you're not allowed to sell that shoot, for whatever reason... all because you used Photoshop to edit it.

Both examples sounds quite ridiculous, don't they? However, it's exactly what happens when you use iBooks to create your work.

There are not many companies I utterly detest, but Apple is one of them, and my hate just grew bigger. I thought that I reached the hate limit for them a long time ago, but I was wrong.

it's idiotic. It is the same as Parker Pens (Apple) saying that a book written with one of their pens (iBooks) may only be sold in officially approved Parker stores (iStore), and that Parker (Apple) has the right to take the work out of print, or even reject it for release, if they so please.


But Apple make this perfectly clear, and the software is free. Nobody is forcing you to use iBooks Author. Given that the tool is specifically designed for creating interactive textbooks, etc, which will ONLY work in iBooks, I'm afraid I must, with the greatest respect, disagree with you.

A better analogy would be if Parker pens had a bookstore and they said "we will GIVE you a nice pen, free of charge, with the proviso that what you write with it you'll sell in our bookstore". Personally I have absolutely no problem with that. Apple are giving you a free tool - they want something from you in return. It's not a free lunch.

So, you spend a year to create an iPad book. Then you wish to publish it, and Apple says: "No, thanks. Bye." The eula states that you cannot sell the book through one of the 500 publishers that do want to sell it. The only thing you can do is spend another year to recreate it in another program. Or worse: Apple decides that your books all get wiped out of the store for whatever reason *they* feel is OK, possibly bankrupting your company. They specifically state that they're not responsible. You think that's fine?

To me, trying to lure people into these kinds of eula's is worse than any standard they try to mangle.

Have Apple ever said that iBook files were ePub compatible?
Not just the new iBook2 format, but ever?

"The iBooks app for iPad (a free download from the App Store) includes a built in iBookstore with access to thousands of books you can download and begin reading immediately. And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world..."

It does sound like to me that's what they are saying.

I'm sorry, but I don't see the problem.

This is free software for producing books specifically for the iBooks application. Apple are (very reasonably, to my mind) saying that if you choose to sell the resulting book, you must do so via the iBookstore. If you wish to give it away, you can freely do so.

Really, what's all the fuss about?

Let's imagine Adobe & Microsoft creating their own book stores, distributing publishing software for free, but only with exclusive rights to sell the books on their own store, charging 30% on each book. Still don't see a problem?

Similarly, if you export your file in another format, such as PDF, you can do whatever you wish with that.
Nope. If you used mentioned software to create it, you have to sell it exclusively via apple's store.

So, you spend a year to create an iPad book. Then you wish to publish it, and Apple says: "No, thanks. Bye." The eula states that you cannot sell the book through one of the 500 publishers that do want to sell it. The only thing you can do is spend another year to recreate it in another program. Or worse: Apple decides that your books all get wiped out of the store for whatever reason *they* feel is OK, possibly bankrupting your company. They specifically state that they're not responsible. You think that's fine?

Which is all exactly the same as if you had made that book as an iOS app instead.
What iBook Author is doing is provide an easier way to create media-heavy books than creating a custom app each time. For 'normal' books there is no need to do either.
It isn't so much whether it is fine or not, but why all the fuss about something that hasn't really changed? Make it as an app, Apple control whether it can be sold or not. Make it as an iBook, Apple control whether it can be sold or not. It just takes less time to do it the second way.

Let's imagine Adobe & Microsoft creating their own book stores, distributing publishing software for free, but only with exclusive rights to sell the books on their own store, charging 30% on each book. Still don't see a problem?


If Microsoft had a Microsoft bookstore, using their own custom format, and providing a free tool that only produced that format, then no, I wouldn't have a problem.

The fact is, that if what you want to create is a normal ePub book which you COULD sell in another store, you'd be a fool to use iBooks Author, because it doesn't produce ePubs. The ONLY reason to use this tool is if you want to produce an enhanced eBook which will ONLY work in iBooks.

"The iBooks app for iPad (a free download from the App Store) includes a built in iBookstore with access to thousands of books you can download and begin reading immediately. And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world..."

The full sentence that you decided not to quote is:

"And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world, you can also use it to read ePub books you get from other sources with your computer."

Makes it sound a bit different, doesn't it? Enough so that it seems rather disingenuous to cut it short the way you did.

They are not saying that iBook format books are ePub compatible, they are not. They are saying that the iBooks application is ePub compatible, which it is.

"And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world, you can also use it to read ePub books you get from other sources with your computer."

So Apple, please explain. If you are so proud of the fact that the iBooks application supports EPUB, the most popular format in the world, then why does your own book creation application *NOT* support it (properly)?

That just does not seem logical. First you show everybody how proud you are to support the standard (and even be a prominent member of the committee), and then you create an application eminently suited to produce books in that standard, but omit the option to do just that.

Puzzled.

Oh, yeah. They've seen a way to possibly make *more* money.


Which is all exactly the same as if you had made that book as an iOS app instead.
What iBook Author is doing is provide an easier way to create media-heavy books than creating a custom app each time. For 'normal' books there is no need to do either.
It isn't so much whether it is fine or not, but why all the fuss about something that hasn't really changed? Make it as an app, Apple control whether it can be sold or not. Make it as an iBook, Apple control whether it can be sold or not. It just takes less time to do it the second way.

Huge difference, IMHO. An app is software. There is no point to create an iOS app, and then sell it in the Android (or any other) market. It just does not work, it can't run on an Android device. You write an application for one operating system, or for another. It's a choice you can make.

A book however, is just a file format, with some information such as text and pictures inside. It needs another program to be useful, and other programs can be written for other operating systems, to be able to open such a file. Therefore, the book is not inherently tied to an operating sytem, but Apple wants to do that nonetheless.

In my view, with iBooks' EULA, Apple is hampering authors a great deal instead of helping them, if they decide to use iBooks. Instead of Apple giving the authors a fine tool with which they can also easily get into 15% the Apple marketshare, that tool, when used, gives them only the Apple market share, and denies them at least 52% (the Android share).

See this chart. (http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4ec2c5a6eab8ea105200001b/chart-of-the-day-android-share-of-smartphone-operating-system-market-nov-14-2011.jpg)

While the chart is for smartphones, I don't think that it'll be much different for tablets, in the end. I would know what I would choose, and it's not iBooks.

So Apple, please explain. If you are so proud of the fact that the iBooks application supports EPUB, the most popular format in the world, then why does your own book creation application *NOT* support it (properly)?


Because this is specifically an application to produce multimedia content. ePub 2 (which iBooks already supports) doesn't support this, and it would be a mamoth task to write a fully ePub3 conformant reading app (there are none in existence). Don't think of this as a tool to produce "books" - it's really a replacement for book Apps, which are already iPad-only, and can be sold only through the iTunes AppStore.

This is really being blown up out of all proportion.

I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis. I find myself both agreeing with HarryT and not thinking Apple are the spawn of the devil over this. Two failures to get out of my pram in one day...too much...pass me the Quaaludes.

...an enhanced eBook which will ONLY work in iBooks.

When Microsoft tried to "enhance" Java, it ended up in court and that cost Microsoft about 1 billion $.

Embrace a standard that doesn't belong to you, create incompatible "enhanced" version of it, give it out for free / little money, then dominate the market is very old.

While the chart is for smartphones, I don't think that it'll be much different for tablets, in the end. I would know what I would choose, and it's not iBooks.
It's hugely different for tablets, for now at least.

Huge difference, IMHO. An app is software. There is no point to create an iOS app, and then sell it in the Android (or any other) market. It just does not work, it can't run on an Android device. You write an application for one operating system, or for another. It's a choice you can make.

A book however, is just a file format, with some information such as text and pictures inside. It needs another program to be useful, and other programs can be written for other operating systems, to be able to open such a file. Therefore, the book is not inherently tied to an operating sytem, but Apple wants to do that nonetheless.

The point of iBooks Author is to allow these media-rich books to be produced without having to write custom apps. That is why it exists.
If you want to write a normal book, there is no need to use this tool, just create it in ePub instead.
So for the people it is likely to benefit, they are no more constrained than they were beforehand.
I understand that there are lots of people who wish the tool was intended to do a lot more than that, but it isn't.

Being a tool that creates iPad-only stuff isn't the problem here.

Apple says "We can refuse to put your book in our store", "If it's in the store, we can take it out whenever we want" *and* "We are not responsible for any loss you may suffer because of it" *and* tell you at the same time "If you used our program, then you are not allowed to sell it anywhere else"...

If you're all fine with such draconian conditions, then I give up.

Please write a book (or a multimedia application, however you want to call it), using iBook Author. Put it into the Apple store. Create a complete company out of it that provides for your entire income. You would not be the first to do anything like that.

Then see what happens if Apple does not like you anymore for whatever reason.

And don't say it will not happen. Google has been dragged to court (http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view_prn.aspx?s=latestnew s&id=1974), because they merely changed their pageranking algorithm; which caused companies to drop off the first page of the search results, losing most of their revenues.

Apple says "We can refuse to put your book in our store", "If it's in the store, we can take it out whenever we want" *and* "We are not responsible for any loss you may suffer because of it" *and* tell you at the same time "If you used our program, then you are not allowed to sell it anywhere else"...

If you're all fine with such draconian conditions, then I give up.

Please write a book (or a multimedia application, however you want to call it), using iBook Author. Put it into the Apple store. Create a complete company out of it that provides for your entire income. You would not be the first to do anything like that.

Then see what happens if Apple does not like you anymore for whatever reason.

And, again, I agree with all of that.
But the main audience for iBooks Author is firms who would otherwise be creating custom iOS apps to deliver their books instead. So already have exactly those problems. They have already decided they are happy with that deal with the devil. For them, this is a simpler, quicker, cheaper way of creating content, with no additional downsides.
This is not intended to be a general-purpose ebook creation tool.

So already have exactly those problems.

No, they don't... By writing a small iOS app to display their book, they can port that book very quickly to any other operating system, if need be, by just writing an app for the other OS. That is a trivial matter, if you build the iOS app well. You may actually build the apps anyway, to put your book on as many platforms as possible.

If using iBooks, you're done for if Apple decides to be evil (and that's indeed also true if you go with iOS-only when writing apps for smartphones and tablets), because you can't sell your book anywhere else, and so you will have to create it from scratch in another authoring program, which is not trivial to do.

So how long will it be until there's a conversion app that turns the output of this app into something compatible with another similar app where it could be re-exported and become a "clean" file in its own right?

Once something like that exists, would it be a TOS violation to convert the output into another format and sell that?

IMO this is a very minor problem that will sort itself out.

So how long will it be until there's a conversion app that turns the output of this app into something compatible with another similar app where it could be re-exported and become a "clean" file in its own right?

If you just want to create standard ePub2s with no extras (then why use this?), then there are reports that just renaming the file to .epub allows it to be opened in a Nook.
For flashy multi-media stuff, what similar app?
There are no ePub3 readers to open it in.

If you just want to create standard ePub2s with no extras (then why use this?), then there are reports that just renaming the file to .epub allows it to be opened in a Nook.
For flashy multi-media stuff, what similar app?
There are no ePub3 readers to open it in.

Yes, that's precisely the point that I was making. Unfortunately, though, we're never going to convince the "Apple are the spawn of Satan" crowd of this.

The point of iBooks Author is to allow these media-rich books to be produced without having to write custom apps. That is why it exists.
If you want to write a normal book, there is no need to use this tool, just create it in ePub instead.
So for the people it is likely to benefit, they are no more constrained than they were beforehand.
I understand that there are lots of people who wish the tool was intended to do a lot more than that, but it isn't.

Well, people like to use just one tool. So people will start to write ordinary books in iBooks Author also. They will not be aware of the Eula.

For flashy multi-media stuff, what similar app?


You could use Flash from Adobe to create a rich multimedia app. It will even run on iOS as an app, using the AIR framework. Another way would be to support Microsoft's Silverlight. The best way would be to create an app that can run HTML5, CCS3 and Javascript code, all zipped into a single file. That's the direction the web is moving into.

Oh, wait... Isn't that last option just like EPUB3?

I don't know if Safari already supports HTML5 and CSS3, but I would find it strange if it doesn't have at least preliminary support already. They could re-use part of the Safari engine for the EPUB3 app. They'd be setting a good example, and thereby supporting the standard and committee of which they are a member. They could even tout the fact that they are the first to have a fully compliant EPUB3 reader.

But they just *had* to go and create a new format that is partly EPUB(3) and partly not, and attach some crazy EULA to it.

Yes, that's precisely the point that I was making. Unfortunately, though, we're never going to convince the "Apple are the spawn of Satan" crowd of this.

If the spec is already (partly) there, then flesh that out, and support it. They're in the IPDF, for gods sake. Write the EPUB3 reader app, and creation software to go with it. Be the first to support the standard and tout that. There is no reason, besides money, to create a hybrid "standard" that is partly EPUB3 and partly not and tying it to your own platform.

You could use Flash from Adobe to create a rich multimedia app. It will even run on iOS as an app, using the AIR framework. Another way would be to support Microsoft's Silverlight. The best way would be to create an app that can run HTML5, CCS3 and Javascript code, all zipped into a single file. That's the direction the web is moving into.

Oh, wait... Isn't that last option just like EPUB3?

I don't know if Safari already supports HTML5 and CSS3, but I would find it strange if it doesn't have at least preliminary support already. They could re-use part of the Safari engine for the EPUB3 app. They'd be setting a good example, and thereby supporting the standard and committee of which they are a member. They could even tout the fact that they are the first to have a fully compliant EPUB3 reader.

But they just *had* to go and create a new format that is partly EPUB(3) and partly not, and attach some crazy EULA to it.

There are no fully compliant ePub 2 readers yet. I understand what you're saying, but a fully compliant ePub 3 reader would have been a huge amount of additional effort. Of course, the work that's gone into producing iBooks 2 could be leveraged at a later date to make it ePub 3 compliant, but the standard is at such an early stage of its life currently, that nobody is going to be producing ePub 3 readers (or content) for a long time yet.

You could use Flash from Adobe to create a rich multimedia app. It will even run on iOS as an app, using the AIR framework. Another way would be to support Microsoft's Silverlight. The best way would be to create an app that can run HTML5, CCS3 and Javascript code, all zipped into a single file. That's the direction the web is moving into.

Lots of coulds, but the point is still that at the moment, there aren't any.

When Microsoft tried to "enhance" Java, it ended up in court and that cost Microsoft about 1 billion $.
Only because Microsoft violated their licensing agreement with Sun for Java. If they hadn't called it Java, or had kept it compatible, they wouldn't have had a problem.

If using iBooks, you're done for if Apple decides to be evil (and that's indeed also true if you go with iOS-only when writing apps for smartphones and tablets), because you can't sell your book anywhere else, and so you will have to create it from scratch in another authoring program, which is not trivial to do.
As a programmer: it's even less trivial to port an app from iOS to Android or Windows Phone 7.

I generally agree with most of the things people throw at Apple, but in this case, I really don't see the issue. Apple are giving away a piece of software for the sole purpose of making books for their store.

If you want to make a book for another store, use another piece of software, chances are media rich books would be incompatible between stores even if apple didn't place restrictions on the software use.

If you want to complain about something, a better target to consider is whether you want to put time/effort into something you can only sell on iOS when apple can turn down any app/book on a whim. As far as this software goes, it's free, if it's useful to you, use it, if it's not or you want better cross plat support, find an alternative.

As a programmer: it's even less trivial to port an app from iOS to Android or Windows Phone 7.

Many non-GUI parts can be re-used, or quite quickly rewritten, I have experienced, because it's just algorithms... If you (need to) create an elaborate GUI, or are porting a game, then you will indeed be in trouble, true enough.

Epub is the same today as it was the day before Apple's announcement. You CAN'T accomplish with EPub the interactivity of the new Apple text books. Apple doesn't call it's new format "epub"....but .ibooks. It's based on epub, but it is not epub.

Apple still supports epub in ALL the ways it did before the announcement. Unlike the Amazon and the Kindle....Apple supports ePub. If you publish a book in epub...Apple's iBook at can read it. Apple's Pages still produces epub files.

The new interactive text books are not epub.

Lee

When Microsoft tried to "enhance" Java, it ended up in court and that cost Microsoft about 1 billion $.

Embrace a standard that doesn't belong to you, create incompatible "enhanced" version of it, give it out for free / little money, then dominate the market is very old.

Yeah, but this isn't what's happening here. There is no "standard" that they are embracing. These books aren't epubs, don't claim to be epubs, have the extension .ibook, and can only be used on an iPad.

Unfortunately, though, we're never going to convince the "Apple are the spawn of Satan" crowd of this.

Pretty much.

Well, people like to use just one tool. So people will start to write ordinary books in iBooks Author also. They will not be aware of the Eula.

Sure, people want their cake and eat it too. If someone wants a "one tool for all platforms"...then the iBooks Author is not for them...just as you don't code in Visual Basic if you want to reach other platforms outside of Microsoft Windows.

Lee

To me the danger is not in the software itself or the limitations to it's users, or even the threat to existing standards.
The danger lies in the fact that Apple will most likely take legal steps to stop other companies from developing similar software on other platforms.

They are of course within their rights to do this but there will be a great hue and cry when they do.

The danger lies in the fact that Apple will most likely take legal steps to stop other companies from developing similar software on other platforms.


What do you believe that? Multimedia authoring tools are not new, and Apple certainly isn't the first to offer such tools.

Could be wrong. Time will tell

Apple claims some rights over what you make using their software. I know of no other software that does this, and the very idea strikes me as objectionable and worthy of ridicule, regardless of practical effect.

Yeah, but this isn't what's happening here. There is no "standard" that they are embracing. These books aren't epubs, don't claim to be epubs, have the extension .ibook, and can only be used on an iPad.


"The iBooks app for iPad (a free download from the App Store) includes a built in iBookstore with access to thousands of books you can download and begin reading immediately. And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world..."

"The iBooks app for iPad (a free download from the App Store) includes a built in iBookstore with access to thousands of books you can download and begin reading immediately. And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world..."

I'm honestly not sure what point you're making here, kartu. The iBooks app can indeed read ePub books, but it can read other things too, including the multimedia books that "iBooks Author" produces.

Holy misleading truncated quote, Batman!

"The iBooks app for iPad (a free download from the App Store) includes a built in iBookstore with access to thousands of books you can download and begin reading immediately. And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world..."

And because the iBooks app uses ePub, the most popular open book format in the world, you can also use it to read ePub books you get from other sources with your computer.

Which is true.

Sure, people want their cake and eat it too. If someone wants a "one tool for all platforms"...then the iBooks Author is not for them...
Lee

If you want a tool for, or to run on all platforms, then anything Apple ever does is not for you.

If you want a tool for, or to run on all platforms, then anything Apple ever does is not for you.

Why not? Macs run Windows as well as any other computer these days, if you're so inclined.

Because if one does most or all of his work in Windows, then it would not be necessary to buy a Mac, except if you want one for the design or need an osx-only program (which most of then being from Apple themselves, because no other software maker will squander 90% of the desktop/laptop market).

But the real problem here is what Kartu said above: Apple wants to have a say in what you (and they) can do with the product (*your* product) made with their software. And just as Kartu, I never saw that with any other manufacturer previously.

I know the stuff runs on the iPad only, but still I think it's wrong Apple wanting to have a say in what people can or can't do with the stuff they made themselves, just because they used an Apple program to make it. It's just wrong on so many levels. For me, it even feels evil.

The article got it only slightly wrong. Apple isn't sabotaging epub, they're sabotaging ebooks. Probably the author conflates epub with ebooks, an understandable mistake.

Of course, Apple isn't alone in this behavior, I wouldn't even call them the worst offenders. They, at least, have the virute of being only sporadically effective. Pretty much every corporation with revenue > $1B feels free to try to sabotage some public good for its own short-term benefit, at some point in its history or the other.

Just ignore their efforts, these too will fail eventually.

Destroy the public good? Without Apple, there would be no tablet market. Apple has created a tool to make it easy to create the kind of interactive text books that many companies have tried AND FAILED to make economically viable before.

Standardization comes AFTER innovation. Apple is blazing a trail here. A trail that doesn't exist yet. A trail that STILL might not succeed. Apple has placed a multi million dollar bet.

Even with the iPad and the iBooks Authoring tool and the cooperation of the 3 publishers that control 90% of the high school text book market....Apple still has an upward battle on it's hands. Getting school systems to buy into this plan is going to be the toughest component.

And what are folks whining about? That Apple hasn't given away all that it's investing in to it's competitors so that customers who want the benefit of all of Apple's efforts, can give their money to Apple's competitors instead.

Apple isn't evil for wanting a return on it's investment. Apple isn't evil for not giving away it's intellectual property to it's competition. Let us conveniently ignore that Apple developed the webkit code that ALL mobile web browsers now use...free of charge as open source. Clearly, most of what Apple does Apple does not give away.

But so what? If Apple didn't do what Apple does there'd be no tablet market to begin with and we wouldn't be talking about the advent of low cost yet highly interactive text books.


Lee

Sigh. Apple did not develop webkit, webkit started as KHTML which was the HTML rendering engine of Konqueror, which is why it is open source (LGPL licensed), not because Apple wanted it to be.

If Apple cared about the public good, they would have implemented their textbook solution as an open, interoperable, standard rather than trying to acheive a monopoly by vendor lock in. They could still have been highly profitable and still have acheived market dominance without the vendor lock in. In fact it would have been a lot easier to convince school systems to adopt their solution if it was open. But, that would have required them to have a little more self confidence than they have displayed in the past.

"Sorry Sir, but I couldn't do my homework because I accidentally deleted my textbook."

I can see it happening :p Besides, buying into a non-open, one-manufacturer solution with regard to education would not only be bad, it would be plain stupid. If you can't see why... Then I'm not even going to try and explain. (It has to do with power and influence, and the unseemly amount of it you'd be giving to said manufacturer.)

But, looking at Apple's ever rising profits since 2001, it seems many people are willing to give up openness and choices for a little more convenience. Actually... Many of the people I know that complained about Microsoft's monopolistic attitude in the 90's now buy Apple, and they *defend* those same attitudes. "But it's not the same, because Apple does not have that big of a market share." Yeah, right.

If Microsoft would try this, in whatever way, they'd be fined by more than one government. They're not even allowed to incorporate a media player in Windows in the Netherlands. (There has to be a separate Windows version without one.) Let alone they'd be allowed to try and setup a one-company solution to use educational material.

Destroy the public good? Without Apple, there would be no tablet market.
We don't know.

Apple has placed a multi million dollar bet.
Doesn't sound as much money after Apple has spent about 100 million on sueing competitors around the globe with "rectangular shape with rounded corners" (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161429) designs.

Apple isn't evil for wanting a return on it's investment. Apple isn't evil for not giving away it's intellectual property to it's competition.
Not evil, right. Let's call it innovation. Apple is being innovative by claiming rights on the work created using their tools.
Trailing this "blazing innovation" Oracle has to claim rights on stuff created using Open Office and Microsoft should do the same with Microsoft Office. Not to give out their intellectual property to the competition. :smack:

Apple didn't have to give away webkit....but they did. They didn't have to use open source, but they did.

And Apple participates and supports the open epub standard.

Apple does both open and proprietary products. Right now, the iBooks are proprietary. This is common. Even open source companies make sure they hold important elements back for themselves so they have a reason for folks to pay them.

And you are right, school systems are going to consider the proprietary format as a negative. All Apple's competitors need to do....is do better, or even "close enough". Apple has left that door open by their choice.

Amazon is doing better, far better, at selling novels. Interestingly...it's doing better and yet it's NOT supporting or participating in the open epub standard.

If a company can secure a leading advantage, they will go it alone. If they are an "also ran" trying to break into a market, they'll join up with others to be "open". Both are simply competitive tactics with no "goodness" associated with them. It is not good or bad inherently.

The market will decide.

Lee

BTW...there is already "vendor lock in" with text books. When a school system (or state) picks a text book. That's it. Parents can't go out and shop for the text book of their choice. Nor would we want them to.

Which of us has ever cared what tools those publishers choose to make their books? I bet you Adobe has a near monopoly position.

And what do you mean "we don't know" if there'd be a tablet market without Apple? 2 years ago there was no tablet market to speak of. Then Apple announces the iPad, and the folks decrying the iPad today were saying that "nobody needs a device between a computer and a smart phone". Oh...it's too expensive. Doesn't do anything. Doesn't have this or that port...yadda yadda.

Then when Apple succeeds in selling millions of iPads....NOW there's a tablet market and everyone and his brother is putting out tablets.

Lee

Apple did have to open source WebKit (the parts of it based on KHTML). WebKit was based on LGPLed code, which means if they made any changes to it, they had to open source them, or be in breach of its license. Contrast that with their kernel code which was also based on open source code, this time BSD licensed, which therefore did not have to be open sourced, and ended up not being open sourced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit#Origins

They did not have to use open source, true. they could have developed their own browser engine from scratch, but I claim they did so to save development costs, not to support open source. Feel free to claim otherwise.

And finally, I dont give a rats ass what Adobe or Microsoft or Amazon or Google or Facebook or whatever corporation you care to name did or will do. I dont condone anti-social actions simply because more than one entity does them. This thread was about Apple, but I can and do say the very same things about all these other companies.

I say that this move by Apple is bad for the ebook ecosystem, and for society that will depend on that ecosystem in the years to come. I have explained my reasons before. Those reasons stand, irrespective of whether 10 other compaines would do the same or whether "the market" approves of Apple. I choose not to outsource my ability to make moral judgements to "the market".

Apple didn't have to give away webkit....but they did.

They had to, as Khtml was already gpl2. It dictates that any derivative of a gpl2 work also becomes gpl2, with fully available source code. If I remember correctly.


The market will decide.


In this case, with regarding to educational stuff, 'the market' will be mainly governments, and they are almost unanimously moving, or trying to move toward open standards and even open source to get out of all the lock-ins and regain independence of any company. Because of that, joining a new propietary standard at this point would be the stupidest thing to do.

With regard to the current textbook market: a government now deals with publishers X, Y, Z, and A. If one of them [expletive deleted by moderation] in some way, they move to another one. (And maybe changing books in the process, or nave not; textbooks often are to be had with several, at least in the Netherlands.) If they do everything through Apple and the iPad, then Apple is the only publisher. Imagine Apple [expletive deleted by moderation].... Bad situation, because the entire system will need to change *at once* if a government wishes to leave Apple. No government will take that risk.

In the end, open formats will always come out on top, because "everything with one vendor" is only convenient as long as you don't want to switch. As soon as you want to switch, it's a nuisance.

Edit: 50.000 Karma for Kovid, if I could. No way I could post that better.

For what it's worth 'This Week in Tech' had an interesting back and forth with Ed Bott (the author of the zdnet article (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-apple-is-sabotaging-an-open-standard-for-digital-books/4378?tag=nl.e539) linked to in the original post) on this very subject:
http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-tech/337

They are not saying that iBook format books are ePub compatible, they are not. They are saying that the iBooks application is ePub compatible, which it is.
If you just want to create standard ePub2s with no extras (then why use this?), then there are reports that just renaming the file to .epub allows it to be opened in a Nook.
If renaming an iBook to .epub works how is iBook not epub compatible?

If renaming an iBook to .epub works how is iBook not epub compatible?

If you restrict to using only some features, the book may open in some ePub readers. That doesn't mean that the book is valid ePub, only that the reader accepts it, and it certainly doesn't mean that a book using all features would be.

If you restrict to using only some features, the book may open in some ePub readers. That doesn't mean that the book is valid ePub, only that the reader accepts it, and it certainly doesn't mean that a book using all features would be.

Don't you have the same relation between .doc and .docx?

Don't you have the same relation between .doc and .docx?

No idea.

Another example would be that most HTML viewers would probably accept and display a plain text file with no markup. That doesn't mean that the text file is HTML.

No idea.

Another example would be that most HTML viewers would probably accept and display a plain text file with no markup. That doesn't mean that the text file is HTML.
Your statement is about the viewer, not the format. If you change the name from .html to .txt can it still be opened?

Your statement is about the viewer, not the format. If you change the name from .html to .txt can it still be opened?

Yes. A .html file is just flat text, so renaming to .txt will work and the file will be opened by any editor; even by a browser. Obviously, the browser won't show the html-markup anymore if you open the file as a txt file.

Any .html file is a valid .txt file, but not the other way around.

Yes. A .html file is just flat text, so renaming to .txt will work and the file will be opened by any editor; even by a browser. Obviously, the browser won't show the html-markup anymore if you open the file as a txt file.

Any .html file is a valid .txt file, but not the other way around.

So an ibook file is a valid .epub file, but not the other way around.

So an ibook file is a valid .epub file, but not the other way around.

No, it's probably not a valid ePub file; it's just a file that an ePub viewer will do something vaguely sensible with. That certainly doesn't mean that it's a valid ePub.

So an ibook file is a valid .epub file, but not the other way around.


No. Ibook and epub are different file formats. The ibook format can possibly be called an epub file after renaming, but doesn't have to be, depending on the features used in the ibook. An epub file is never a valid ibook file.

An html-file *is* a textfile. Actually, a plain .txt file without any html tags in it *is* an valid html file (be it without any markup), after you rename it. When I said that it's not valid html, I should have said that it's not a valid html webpage. It isn't because it misses the markup that would make it a webpage.

Unless there's a clause in the contract that says that whether or not Apple accepts the book, the creator can't sell it anywhere else in any form, I don't see what the hubbub is all about.

All Apple has done is offer writers a free software package to write the books on, in exchange for a promise not to sell the formatted output in a competitor's store.

Short of outright selling the software, what else could they have done and still be in the business of making money?

I'm a bit more sympathetic to the complaints about Apple not really using the standard flavor of epub inside their DRM. I wonder if that has anything to do with the apparent inability of the hackers to crack the DRM?

As for Apple's moving into etextbooks, I think it's going to cost the schools more than they think. Unless Apple comes up with an inexpensive low end dedicated unbreakable EBR, I'd stay away from buying into the Apple iBook ecology.

No, it's probably not a valid ePub file; it's just a file that an ePub viewer will do something vaguely sensible with. That certainly doesn't mean that it's a valid ePub.

Doesn't it mean that it has the same encoding?

Doesn't it mean that it has the same encoding?

It means that it's a ZIP archive containing HTML files, which is also what ePub is, but whereas one can say that every ePub file is a ZIP archive with HTML in it, the converse isn't true: not every ZIP with HTML is an ePub. In this case, there'll be content other than HTML (the multimedia content) that an ePub viewer won't have a clue what to do with.

Unless there's a clause in the contract that says that whether or not Apple accepts the book, the creator can't sell it anywhere else in any form, I don't see what the hubbub is all about.
If it would be about just regular books, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's supposed to be directed at the education system. You don't have the school buy iPads for every student and then say that if the textbook gets rejected the author can still sell it in another form.

It means that it's a ZIP archive containing HTML files, which is also what ePub is, but whereas one can say that every ePub file is a ZIP archive with HTML in it, the converse isn't true: not every ZIP with HTML is an ePub. In this case, there'll be content other than HTML (the multimedia content) that an ePub viewer won't have a clue what to do with.

But it's not like any epub viewer can open all epubs, and this doesn't mean that some epubs aren't epubs. So your argument doesn't show that ibooks aren't epubs.

But it's not like any epub viewer can open all epubs, and this doesn't mean that some epubs aren't epubs. So your argument doesn't show that ibooks aren't epubs.

I'm afraid you've completely lost me there: "this doesn't mean that some epubs aren't epubs"? I don't know what that means.

Did I miss something major? My understanding was that the "epubs" that Apple accepts simply must conform to a stricter level of compliance above and beyond ePub but is still a valid ePub.

??

No. Ibook and epub are different file formats. The ibook format can possibly be called an epub file after renaming, but doesn't have to be, depending on the features used in the ibook. An epub file is never a valid ibook file.
Has anyone tried the opposite: rename an epub as ibook and see if it is opened by the ibook reader?

Has anyone tried the opposite: rename an epub as ibook and see if it is opened by the ibook reader?

I'm sure it would be. The iBooks app does, after all, read ePubs.

I'm afraid you've completely lost me there: "this doesn't mean that some epubs aren't epubs"? I don't know what that means.

You said (emphasis mine):
In this case, there'll be content other than HTML (the multimedia content) that an ePub viewer won't have a clue what to do with.
Your logic seems to be: if there is some part of the file that can't be viewed by an ePub viewer, then the file is not epub. Since not all epubs can be viewed by all ePub viewers, then by your logic, they are not epubs.

You said (emphasis mine):

Your logic seems to be: if there is some part of the file that can't be viewed by an ePub viewer, then the file is not epub. Since not all epubs can be viewed by all ePub viewers, then by your logic, they are not epubs.

An ePub is a file which conforms to the ePub file format specification - there are various validation tools available which will check an ePub for conformance to the standard.

A file that contains "extra" content may well be displayed (with greater or lesser success) by an ePub viewer, but it can't correctly be described as an ePub file - at least, not one than conforms to the ePub specification. If you have a looser definition that an ePub file is a file that an ePub viewer will display, then it may certainly fit your definition, but you'll struggle to find anyone who will accept that definition as valid.

I'm sure it would be. The iBooks app does, after all, read ePubs.

MS Word reads .txt files, but if you take a .doc file and change the extension to .txt, you won't see anything in Word. Because they are not the same format.

But it's not like any epub viewer can open all epubs, and this doesn't mean that some epubs aren't epubs. So your argument doesn't show that ibooks aren't epubs.

You argument appears to be:
All ePub files can be opened by a Nook
Some iBook files can be opened by a Nook
Therefore iBooks files are ePub files.

Alternatively:
All cats have four legs
My dog has four legs
Therefore my dog is a cat

An ePub is a file which conforms to the ePub file format specification - there are various validation tools available which will check an ePub for conformance to the standard.

A file that contains "extra" content may well be displayed (with greater or lesser success) by an ePub viewer, but it can't correctly be described as an ePub file - at least, not one than conforms to the ePub specification. If you have a looser definition that an ePub file is a file that an ePub viewer will display, then it may certainly fit your definition, but you'll struggle to find anyone who will accept that definition as valid.

Do you consider epub2 to be an epub format?

Of course I do. And if you're going to follow that up with "but not all ePub viewers will correctly display ePub 2 files", that's perfectly true: there is no ePub viewer currently in existence which is fully conformant with the ePub 2 standard.

You argument appears to be:
All ePub files can be opened by a Nook
Some iBook files can be opened by a Nook
Therefore iBooks files are ePub files.

Alternatively:
All cats have four legs
My dog has four legs
Therefore my dog is a cat
I didn't say that some iBook files can be opened by a Nook, I said that if you change the name of some .ibook files to .epub they can be opened by some epub viewers.

Of course I do. And if you're going to follow that up with "but not all ePub viewers will correctly display ePub 2 files", that's perfectly true: there is no ePub viewer currently in existence which is fully conformant with the ePub 2 standard.

Right, ibook is to epub what epub2 is to epub.

I didn't say that some iBook files can be opened by a Nook, I said that if you change the name of some .ibook files to .epub they can be opened by some epub viewers.

Which, as has been said repeatedly, does not mean that they are valid ePub files. Apple make no claim that these are ePub files. Why are you trying to do so?

Which, as has been said repeatedly, does not mean that they are valid ePub files.

If you rename a CBR file as .RAR it can be opened with winrar. Do you think that CBR files are valid RAR files?

If you rename a CBR file as .RAR it can be opened with winrar. Do you think that CBR files are valid RAR files?

Yes, and iBooks files are presumably valid ZIP files. But - to repeat for the 100th time - that does not mean that they are valid ePub file. I suggest that you try an iBooks file with an ePub validator and see what it thinks about it.

Yes, and iBooks files are presumably valid ZIP files. But - to repeat for the 100th time - that does not mean that they are valid ePub file. I suggest that you try an iBooks file with an ePub validator and see what it thinks about it.
You can compress a txt file to get a zip, rar, epub, epub2, epub3 or ibook file. From these zip and rar are not the same file format because if you change the extension, you can't open them because they don't have the same format since they compress files differently. For epub and ibook we can tell that they use the same compression as zip does. The only thing that is left is what is inside the archive.

You argument appears to be:
All ePub files can be opened by a Nook
Some iBook files can be opened by a Nook
Therefore iBooks files are ePub files.

Alternatively:
All cats have four legs
My dog has four legs
Therefore my dog is a cat
I didn't say that some iBook files can be opened by a Nook, I said that if you change the name of some .ibook files to .epub they can be opened by some epub viewers.

So if I rename my dog, and it has four legs, it becomes a cat?

If you rename a CBR file as .RAR it can be opened with winrar. Do you think that CBR files are valid RAR files?

If you rename any RAR file to a CBR file it can be opened by a comic book viewer. Does that make any RAR file a comic book?

So if I rename my dog, and it has four legs, it becomes a cat?

Your analogy is still missing something for the "can be opened by an epub reader".

If you rename any RAR file to a CBR file it can be opened by a comic book viewer. Does that make any RAR file a comic book?
Really? If I make a RAR file of a video it can be opened by a comic book viewer?

Really? If I make a RAR file of a video it can be opened by a comic book viewer?

The RAR file can, yes.
It won't see any pages, but it will open the file.

Your analogy is still missing something for the "can be opened by an epub reader".

Other than the 'can be opened by a Nook'?
That is a property of the file, in the same way that 'has four legs' is a property of a cat.

Other than the 'can be opened by a Nook'?
That is a property of the file, in the same way that 'has four legs' is a property of a cat.
It's not a property of the file, it's a property of the reader.

Lurk mode off:

Let's try it again.
As Mr Goyal correctly pointed out, Apple is undercutting the public good that was *supposed* to arise from a uniform ebook specification.

Again: this is not about Apple being good or evil. What they are doing is what the environment and the rules of the game *allow* them to do. What any other for-profit corporation in their position would do if they could get away with it.

As much as I agree with Mr Goyal, where we differ is in our expectation of success for the Apple format. I'm not sure ignoring their behavior will suffice because the market will not be ignoring the product of this fork. Apple iOS hardware is a big lever to promote their products regardless of the merit of the products.

The issue here is ebooks as a *commercial* product and what the market for commercial ebooks will be like. And the fact is that because of the failure of the <idpf> to address the full delivery process of commercial ebooks, down to consumer level, and to establish *binding* control of their spec, the door is now wide open for commercial ventures to exploit all the work that has gone into defining and developing that spec, not to promote interoperability and transportability, but to advance their own interests. And those interests lie in fragmenting the market, minimizing interoperability and transportability, and marginalizing the generic, interoperable, product.

I think commercial ebooks are headed towards balkanization. We've been on the road from the beginning but the road is now a freeway; free and clear with no checkpoints ahead.

What Apple is doing has a good chance to become the norm for many other players in the ebook market the world over: Exploit the existing spec and tools, modified to render them purposefully useless outside your own products, and then sell the result as a different, more "innovative" platform.

I'm not sure what recourse exists *now*, after the fact.

The time to act was at the spec's launch or even before; wrap the spec in meaningful licensing to ensure that product of all the hard work served its intended goals of interoperability rather than be "adapted" to undercut those very goals. For an organization dealing with intellectual property they paid singularly little attention to their own output. That is one thing the Open Source software community has always kept front and center with their various licenses, ensuring their output is *not* used to subvert *their* goals, whether they be modestly communitarian or Stallman-nesquely revolutionary.

Essentially, the <idpf> has been relying on the honor system to (cheaply) police their specification. And they have been warned. They just chose not to act. The least they could do was the most that they would do. (A logo program! Wheee!)

But ebooks are big money and where there is big money there is little room for honor. Once one "gentleman" breaks the agreement, the rest will feel free to ignore it. And ignore it they will; there is a lot of good work in the spec and in the implementations out there. Most of it up from grabs for commercialization. Never mind Apple; do mind all those that will follow in their footsteps.

It's a new ball-game now, people.
Moving forward it's all about the Tag forks, the CSS forks, and the proprietary embeds and wrappers to come. Spec validation and interoperability are out,; brick-walled gardens are the order of the day.

Why not? There is money to be made and nobody to nay-say it.

It's not a property of the file, it's a property of the reader.

I started to type a response, but I really can't be bothered anymore.
The fact that something can be opened by a particular ePub reader doesn't make it an ePub file. You can argue that until you are blue in the face, it is just a basic logical fallacy, and this is a really boring discussion.

Lurk mode off:

So.... Idpf did not protect their own standard? That's stupid.
Apple took the standard, adapted/ subverted it and made it into an Aplle-only format, while they are part of idpf? IMHO, that's without honor, but as you say, maybe where there's money, there is no honor. Matinee that's the reason why I'm not filthy rich.

It seems that companies, in the end, are just incapable of working together on a standard, and then trust in their *product* to seek stuff, instead of trusting in their *lock-in*.

So.... Idpf did not protect their own standard? That's stupid.

What is there to protect?
At its most simple, it is HTML in a zip file, with some manifest files.
Are you going to try to patent that?
None of the added extras are something that couldn't easily be done in a very slightly different way if needed.
Microsoft .lit was HTML in a wrapper. mobi is HTML in a wrapper. ePub is HTML in a wrapper. None of it is rocket science.

Apple took the standard, adapted/ subverted it and made it into an Aplle-only format, while they are part of idpf?

No. Apple has done nothing with the standard. .ibook is not .epub.

No. Apple has done nothing with the standard. .ibook is not .epub.

I didn't say they did anything to the standard, but they took it as a start for their own format.

It'd be the same as if I am a very big company, and you plus 5 other people are small(er) companies. We are working together on a product (with the intent to sell it, and then make money), and at 90% completion, I, as a big company say:

"Thanks for the work dudes. I'm going to take ALL our work, add some stuff here, change some stuff there so it becomes incompatible with your stuff, and then I'm going to sell it all on my own. And I can do it because I'm big."

That's honorless.

I didn't say they did anything to the standard, but they took it as a start for their own format.

It'd be the same as if I am a very big company, and you plus 5 other people are small(er) companies. We are working together on a product (with the intent to sell it, and then make money), and at 90% completion, I, as a big company say:

"Thanks for the work dudes. I'm going to take ALL our work, add some stuff here, change some stuff there so it becomes incompatible with your stuff, and then I'm going to sell it all on my own. And I can do it because I'm big."

That's honorless.

Umm.

EPUB is released under an open license and in open formats. The express intent of open formats is to be used in this manner.

I don't understand why people are surprised when open protocols are extended. This website you're on right now exists solely because people took open protocols and extended them.

Umm.

EPUB is released under an open license and in open formats. The express intent of open formats is to be used in this manner.

No, they aren't. An open format is "open" so people can implement and use that format for free, to guarantee interoperability and make sure the format stays available far into the future. The possibility to extend an open format is only a possibility, not an express purpose.

I don't understand why people are surprised when open protocols are extended. This website you're on right now exists solely because people took open protocols and extended them.

Of course an open protocol or format can be extended; that is no problem, if the extended format stays completely backwards compatible, and also free and open. This is not the case with the iBook-format, though.

And it would be good if the extensions are standardised, or you'll have 5 formats that all read the original spec, but when an extension is used, the formats become incompatible. Then you get something like HTML-hell, caused by Microsoft and Netscape in the 90's, which took 15 years to solve.

I hope the eBook-companies learned from that mess.

It's simple, what Apple should have done is:

1) Used EPUB 3

or

2) If using EPUB 3 was not possible because it lacked some functionality (which I highly doubt, by the way) they should have released a document saying:

We are using this format named "ibook" it will differ from epub 3 in so and so ways, because epub 3 does not allow us to do such and such. Publish a specification for the extensions so that they can be used by other people without needing reverse engineering. Work with the IDPF to get their extensions standardised in the future.

That is the bare minimum they needed to do. Really, they should also have built some graceful degradation into their extensions so that .ibook could be used with epub 3 readers without too much loss of functionality.

That is how you support an open specification, while still retaining the ability to innovate.

Instead they chose to take whatever they needed from a community standard, build undocumented, proprietary extensions on top of it and not give a hoot for interoperability. That is parasitic behavior, pure and simple.

It's simple, what Apple should have done is:

1) Used EPUB 3

or

2) If using EPUB 3 was not possible because it lacked some functionality (which I highly doubt, by the way)

I strongly suspect the opposite: that ePub 3 does too much. There is no ePub 3 viewer in existence at the current time. Apple simply wanted a format to support interactive multimedia books - the kind of thing that's currently done with book Apps. ePub 3 would have been an "over the top" solution for this. I know you'll disagree, but I think they've taken the right approach here. To have only implemented a small subset of ePub 3 features, and then to have claimed that iBooks was an ePub 3 viewer would have been vastly more misleading than the solution they've adopted, which is to make no claim that these files are ePub files.

I strongly suspect the opposite: that ePub 3 does too much.

Then they could have said so. ibooks is a strict subset of epub3. Ibooks viewer programs will continue to support this strict subset of epub3. And defined exactly what that subset is. There is no epub 2 viewer in existence at the current time, either. That does not mean that every tom, dick and Apple should feel free to keep creating new ebook formats.

If epub is too full-featured to be used for interactive books on a powerful tablet, then what use will it be on a small ereader? To be honest, I think that a subset of html and css is MORE than enough to create ebooks for simple reading. You said you liked my first ebook very much; I used... What..... 5 html tags, and 10 lines of css code or so.

Edit: Eh? No epub2 viewer either? Then what is everybody using now; epub1?

Then they could have said so. ibooks is a strict subset of epub3. Ibooks viewer programs will continue to support this strict subset of epub3. And defined exactly what that subset is. There is no epub 2 viewer in existence at the current time, either. That does not mean that every tom, dick and Apple should feel free to keep creating new ebook formats.

The reason that I don't personally see this as an issue is that these books will replace book Apps, which are equally iPad-specific. I'm afraid we're just going to have to disagree about this.

The reason that I don't personally see this as an issue is that these books will replace book Apps, which are equally iPad-specific. I'm afraid we're just going to have to disagree about this.

Then they really should not have been called books. Perhaps .ibookapp, or .ibapp :)

I'm willing to wager whatever you like that people are going to expect .ibook files to be convertible to other book formats. They are going to have the (very reasonable) expectation that an .ibook behave like a book, not like an app.

I'm willing to wager whatever you like that people are going to expect .ibook files to be convertible to other book formats. They are going to have the (very reasonable) expectation that an .ibook behave like a book, not like an app.

People may have that expectation, but it's a flawed expectation. The whole point of this tool is that it's for producing interactive books, something that you just can't do with ePub 2, Mobi, etc. Hell yes, I'd be the first to agree with you that it would have been wonderful if Apple had produced a fully-fledged ePub 3 reader, but I just don't think that's a practical commercial proposition at the current time. I completely understand where you're coming from on this.

People may have that expectation, but it's a flawed expectation. The whole point of this tool is that it's for producing interactive books,

That may be the point of iBooks Author (though even there I'm betting that people will use it to create non interactive books as well), but I am not actually complaining about iBooks Author, I'm complaining about .ibook, the format.

If Apple had released a tool called iBooks Author that created .app files that you published only through the apple app store, you would not have heard a peep from me.

I strongly suspect the opposite: that ePub 3 does too much. There is no ePub 3 viewer in existence at the current time. Apple simply wanted a format to support interactive multimedia books - the kind of thing that's currently done with book Apps.
Is there some rule saying that an epub3 file has to use all the things that epub3 can use?

Is there some rule saying that an epub3 file has to use all the things that epub3 can use?

No. But the ePub 3 standard has a long list of things that a reader is required to support - far more than Apple need for what they've created iBooks Author for. ie, to create a reader which they could call an ePub 3 reader would have needed a far, far greater investment, with little or no benefit in return.

No. But the ePub 3 standard has a long list of things that a reader is required to support - far more than Apple need for what they've created iBooks Author for. ie, to create a reader which they could call an ePub 3 reader would have needed a far, far greater investment, with little or no benefit in return.

I wasn't talking about the reader, but the ibook format.

I wasn't talking about the reader, but the ibook format.

I'm afraid I don't understand the meaning of your question. You asked if an ePub 3 file had to use all the features of ePub 3. No, of course it doesn't, but why did you ask?

I'm afraid I don't understand the meaning of your question. You asked if an ePub 3 file had to use all the features of ePub 3. No, of course it doesn't, but why did you ask?

I quoted the reason for the question:
I strongly suspect the opposite: that ePub 3 does too much. There is no ePub 3 viewer in existence at the current time. Apple simply wanted a format to support interactive multimedia books - the kind of thing that's currently done with book Apps.
You said that Apple made the format because it wanted a format to support interactive multimedia books. But there is epub3 for that already, so your argument doesn't make any sense.

I quoted the reason for the question:

You said that Apple made the format because it wanted a format to support interactive multimedia books. But there is epub3 for that already, so your argument doesn't make any sense.

Yes, it does; you didn't read my post properly. Apple could not call iBooks an ePub 3 reader unless it supported the mandatory set of features required by the ePub 3 standard. Given that they had no commercial need for this feature set, they had no reason to adhere to the ePub 3 standard for iBooks.

Yes, it does; you didn't read my post properly. Apple could not call iBooks an ePub 3 reader unless it supported the mandatory set of features required by the ePub 3 standard. Given that they had no commercial need for this feature set, they had no reason to adhere to the ePub 3 standard for iBooks.

I didn't say that they should have called the reader an epub3 reader. I wasn't talking about the reader. I was talking about the file format. Why do you keep pretending that I was talking about the reader?

I didn't say that they should have called the reader an epub3 reader. I wasn't talking about the reader. I was talking about the file format. Why do you keep pretending that I was talking about the reader?

Because you're not making any sense to me.

Let's suppose that Apple had made iBooks Author produce files that were fully ePub 3 compliant. What application is available to read those files?

Because you're not making any sense to me.

Let's suppose that Apple had made iBooks Author produce files that were fully ePub 3 compliant. What application is available to read those files?

I'm not making sense to you because you won't actually read my posts. I didn't say that Apple should have made iBooks Author produce files that were fully ePub 3 compliant.

I can repost what I've said, but you could also read the posts (I would say again but you didn't read them in the first place).

We seem to be having difficulty communicating here. I don't think there's any point in continuing this discussion.

Because you're not making any sense to me.

Let's suppose that Apple had made iBooks Author produce files that were fully ePub 3 compliant. What application is available to read those files?

I think the point is that you seemed to argue from technical reasons that they could not have used ePub3. But they could have uses a subset of ePub3 and not called there reader an ePub3 reader. So you technical reason for creating a new format was not valid.

Of course there are business reasons to not follow a standard but that is obvious and was not what you seemed to say.

I think the point is that you seemed to argue from technical reasons that they could not have used ePub3. But they could have uses a subset of ePub3 and not called there reader an ePub3 reader. So you technical reason for creating a new format was not valid.

Are any of us technically qualified to say whether everything that is available in iBooks Author could be done in valid standard ePub3? You have just stated that as a fact.

Are any of us technically qualified to say whether everything that is available in iBooks Author could be done in valid standard ePub3? You have just stated that as a fact.

But that is not relevant for the given argument (I should have said might have been able to). The argument seemed to be that just because they could not make a full fledged ePub3 reader they had to make their own format. And that is not a valid argument since it assumes without any evidence that a subset would not have been enough.

But that is not relevant for the given argument (I should have said might have been able to). The argument seemed to be that just because they could not make a full fledged ePub3 reader they had to make their own format. And that is not a valid argument since it assumes without any evidence that a subset would not have been enough.

Since I don't seem to be explaining myself very well, I'm going to type this very slowly, in the hope that it will be easier to understand :).

Yes, I agree that Apple could probably have achieved what they wanted with ePub 3. I don't know for certain, but from what I've read about ePub 3, it seems like a reasonable assumption to make.

They would then have required a app to read what they had created. They clearly didn't want to produce a full-fledged ePub 3 reader app, because ePub 3 has all sorts of mandatory requirements that were of no interest for the specific commercial purpose they had in mind. So they could not have claimed that what they produced was an ePub 3 reader - it would still be "a reader for iBooks files", not "an ePub 3 reader".

So, we have a situation where we have an iBooks reader app, and a tool which produces files which can only be read by that app. In this circumstance, is there any commercial benefit to be gained from using ePub 3 at all? I would argue that there is no benefit, because by using ePub 3, Apple are opening the gates to other people to develop apps which could also read those files, and hence taking sales away from Apple. In this situation, it makes sound commercial sense to make the format proprietary, so that yours is the only platform that can display the books that your tool produces.

QED.

Amazon have made exactly the same decision with their "KF8" multimedia format.

So, we have a situation where we have an iBooks reader app, and a tool which produces files which can only be read by that app.
In this circumstance, is there any commercial benefit to be gained from using ePub 3 at all? I would argue that there is no benefit, because by using ePub 3, Apple are opening the gates to other people to develop apps which could also read those files, and hence taking sales away from Apple. In this situation, it makes sound commercial sense to make the format proprietary, so that yours is the only platform that can display the books that your tool produces.

QED.


I'm confused. You appear to be saying that, in your opinion, Apple delibrately chose not to use a subset of epub 3, so as to prevent other people from interoperating with their .ibook format. In other words, they delibrately chose to fragment the ebook space, for their selfish benefit. This is precisely the behavior I and others are complaining about. I somehow doubt that's what you intended the QED to prove.


Amazon have made exactly the same decision with their "KF8" multimedia format.

Yes, and they are equally to blame for making a choice that harms the ebook community at large, for their selfish, short term gain. Something I have said when KF8 was first announced.

Amazon and Apple are two peas in a pod; creating their own standards to suppress competition.

Amazon and Apple are two peas in a pod; creating their own standards to suppress competition.

Or outrun the competition. (just dont call their products standards; the misuse of the term is part of what is at issue.)

Bear in mind that there is no law of man or nature that forbids proprietary solutions. Historically, proprietary solutions are faster to ramp up, more agile in responding to market needs, and (obviously) more consistent.

Open competition is up to the communitarian/open forces that bear the onus of creating/maintaining competitive open solutions. Don't expect for-profit organizations to sacrifice anything meaningful in the name of open-ness.

Apple itself said it best just this week; “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all

Substitute "epub" for "america" and their position is clear.

And, bear in mind that, while Apple has *never* been a company I care for--I don't like that too much of their business is about milking the unwary, since day one--there are *perfectly valid* reasons for them to do a proprietary solution. (Simple test: how soon will an actual epub3 product hit the market? Amazon already has 4-5 million KF8-capable gadgets out on the street. Apple, at least 30 million iPads. If only 10% are actually used for iBooks, that is still 3 million.)

The whole open-ness issue is essentially a commons problem: everybody wants the *benefits* of an open spec but nobody wants the cost of upholding and defending it.

And so we have an outright and brazen hijack. Or two. Or ten.

In software, most of the big, successful efforts have big, powerful backers capable of defending the project; for all its IP issues, you don't see somebody wrapping Android in proprietary wrappers to make it incompatible and then calling it something else, do you?

Fires, Nooks and Sony's don't deny they run Android even when, like the Nook Tablet, they do everything they can to close up the hardware. Google would not stand for it.

Ditto with Linux, Apache, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.
The stakehoders and supporters of *those* open efforts watch and protect their product. Lawsuits *have* been filed. Abusers *have* been slapped down. Linux-based readers like the Hanlins and Pocketbooks have been asked to publish their source code and they *have* complied.

If you benefit from open systems you *should* live up to the rules of the system.
But if the system you are leveraging has *no* rules and *no* enforcement...

(shrug)

I keep saying it is not Apple that is at fault here; They have done nothing illegal. (Ethically-challenged, yes. But illegal, no.)
They're just smooth operators taking advantage of the naive and unwary.

Sometimes you *do* have to blame the "victim".
And in this case the "victims" should have known this was coming.

If it's not up to Apple to defend epub out solve it's problems, then they should leave the committee at once.

Amazon and Apple are two peas in a pod; creating their own standards to suppress competition.
There would be no mainstream e-book market if not for Amazon. Amazon created this market, and it did so before anyone else even used epub. How could they suppress competition by not using a standard that wasn't available?
Answer - they could not.

And of course it's not like epubs from Apple, B&N, and now even Kobo are cross-platform compatible: they all use incompatible drms, even if the underlying format is epub compatible (it's not clear that it is in the case of Kobo).

Apple supports and uses the common epub standard, although with their own DRM. But you can't use it to make the kind of books they'd like to see, so they came up with a new standard that will. It's hard to see that as suppressing competition when *there is no competition.* Seriously, who is being suppressed?

If it's not up to Apple to defend epub out solve it's problems, then they should leave the committee at once.

Or kicked out.

Neither is going to happen, though.
Need any further proof the <idpf> doesn't care?

Now I am confused. When I bought my first ereader, Kindles were not available in Canada, and I thought that the mobi format was created by another company and purchased by Amazon at a time when .lit and .lrf and even the dreaded .PDF files were widely used.

I may be wrong, but I think there were ereaders before Amazon leapt over tall buildings in a single bound. Amazon has possibly accelerated market growth, but not single handedly created it.

Helen

Amazon did not create the ereader or ebook markets, but they did bring it out of obscurity.... Just as Apple did with tablets. There were readers and ebooks before Amazon, but they were not widely used. Believe it or not, there *were* tablets before the iPad, and they ran Windows XP for Tablets :p

If you restrict to using only some features, the book may open in some ePub readers. That doesn't mean that the book is valid ePub, only that the reader accepts it, and it certainly doesn't mean that a book using all features would be.

Don't you have the same relation between .doc and .docx?

I don't think the relationship between .iBooks and EPUB is similar to that between .doc and docx. The .doc format is a binary format while the .docx format (per Wikipedia) is basically a zipped XML file (to me it sounds similar to the OpenDocument format).

Based on what I've read in this thread, it sounds to me that the iBooks format and EPUB are like two different version of HTML, where one version (iBooks) has added non-standard tags to the basic format (EPUB). While an EPUB reader might be able to view an ebook with the added tags it might not render the ebook correctly or as intended. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me.

I think I get what people are saying here. Let me rephrase it.

What SLIS asked was, if they don't want to read EPUB3 books fully, but instead focus on a subset, why not just write a reader that reads EPUB3 books but only supports the subset.

The problem with that logic is, according to the EPUB3 specifications, you must do all or nothing. You can't make a reader that says it reads EPUB3 format that only supports part of the EPUB3 format. If you make an EPUB3 reader, it has to be able to (within reasonable limitations such as DRM) , read all EPUB3 documents. It even has to have the ability to plug-in DRM from multiple sources to enable new content owners to read it.

Apple has chosen to implement only a subset of EPUB3's requirements for their interactive books app. As such, they CANNOT call it EPUB. The reason they can't is because the reader cannot be an EPUB3 Reader. It works both ways, see? The epub version is encoded in the file. Apple cannot use their reader to differentiate between supported or unsupported Epubs. That breaks the standard, and so, they can't call their reader an EPUB reader.

So they elected to call it an .ibook reader. They moved around the issue. Yes, they did it in a proprietary way, but this was the end result ANYWAY. People would be equally complaining if they broke the standard and implemented their own "Epub 2.5"

What HarryT is saying is simply this:

What is the difference between implementing only a subset of features of EPUB3 and calling it .epub, and what Apple did, which was IMPLEMENT ONLY A SUBSET OF FEATURES OF EPUB3, and calling it .ibook?

What SLIS asked was, if they don't want to read EPUB3 books fully, but instead focus on a subset, why not just write a reader that reads EPUB3 books but only supports the subset.
Not exactly. This isn't about reading books but about writing them. It's not like there are thousands of epub3 books out there waiting for a reader.

The problem with that logic is, according to the EPUB3 specifications, you must do all or nothing.
And those specifications were written in part by Apple.

People would be equally complaining if they broke the standard and implemented their own "Epub 2.5"
Why isn't there an epub2.5 standard? They started working on epub3 almost 2 years ago. I would ask why none of them figured out that epub3 was too much to handle, but some obviously did (hint, hint, it was Apple).

What is the difference between implementing only a subset of features of EPUB3 and calling it .epub, and what Apple did, which was IMPLEMENT ONLY A SUBSET OF FEATURES OF EPUB3, and calling it .ibook?

But that is not what they did. They introduced new things that is not in ePub3. So the choice was to implement a subset (with the plan to extend the support) and not call it ePub3 or invent their own parts of the language.

But that is not what they did. They introduced new things that is not in ePub3. So the choice was to implement a subset (with the plan to extend the support) and not kall it ePub3 or invent their own parts of the language.

That's right. ePub 3, for example, does "programmability" using Javascript. A ".iBook" file does it using using a custom Apple scripting language.

Or outrun the competition. (just dont call their products standards; the misuse of the term is part of what is at issue.)

Bear in mind that there is no law of man or nature that forbids proprietary solutions. Historically, proprietary solutions are faster to ramp up, more agile in responding to market needs, and (obviously) more consistent.

Companies can be forced to do a lot of things when they are being found guilty of abusing a dominant market position. This includes forcing them to license their solutions right up to breaking up the company. The public is entirely justified to defend an open market against companies that use their dominance to lock competitors out.


Apple itself said it best just this week;

“We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all

Substitute "epub" for "america" and their position is clear.

I am sure that this sentiment of "we don't care about society, we only care about our profit" can also be subscribed by Russian oligarchs and narco traffickers. Apple has outgrown the size that made such an attitude inconsequential. Perhaps some companies need to be reminded that society can exist without them, but they cannot exist without society.

Do people recall the time when the audio CD was introduced? A single standard, hardware made by many companies, available everywhere. That's an ideal way to introduce a new technology.

Do people recall the time when the audio CD was introduced? A single standard, hardware made by many companies, available everywhere. That's an ideal way to introduce a new technology.

With compatibility being compromised by DRM:
The Red Book audio specification, except for a simple 'anti-copy' bit in the subcode, does not include any copy protection mechanism. Starting in early 2002, attempts were made by record companies to market "copy-protected" non-standard Compact Discs, which cannot be ripped, or copied, to hard drives or easily converted to MP3s. One major drawback to these copy-protected discs is that most will not play on either computer CD-ROM drives, or some standalone CD players that use CD-ROM mechanisms. Philips has stated that such discs are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo because they violate the Red Book specifications. Numerous copy-protection systems have been countered by readily available, often free, software.

And then, one of my friends dropped most of his teeth onto the floor when I still copied such a disc using the very oldest technique: a line-out cable from the CD-player, plugged into the line-in jack of a CD Recorder. (One that actually even created seperate tracks while recording.)

With compatibility being compromised by DRM:

The first audio CD was released in 1982. The DRM versions came two decades later and were quite successfully suppressed by Philips.

Do people recall the time when the audio CD was introduced? A single standard, hardware made by many companies, available everywhere. That's an ideal way to introduce a new technology.

But that was (an still is, I believe) a proprietary standard, owned by Philips. It's much easier for a single company to enforce compliance with its own commercial property than it is for anyone to force someone to adhere to an open standard.

The first audio CD was released in 1982. The DRM versions came two decades later and were quite successfully suppressed by Philips.

HTML came out quite a long time ago, which is what all the popular eBook formats are based on.
Successfully suppressed? Really?

iBooks itself is even more dangerous to writers than anything Apple could do to the epub standard. Read this:

zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360

That does it. I knew Apple is greedy and arrogant, but this beats anything I've ever read with regard to a software EULA, bar none. Now I won't even consider their products ever again.


is it really?
Amazon has the same policy when you use one of their service: http://wahoocorner.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-kdp-select-saved-my-book.html

And this says a lot


At first, I wasn't sure what to think about it, especially given the exclusivity requirement. Part of me was aghast -- how dare they ask me to pull my book from the other retailers! And then something occurred to me. Between October 1 and December 31, I had sold a grand total of .... ONE book on all the non-Amazon platforms -- that one sale on Barnes & Noble.


Now replace amazon with apple...

Successfully suppressed? Really?

I haven't come across a non-format compatible CD for a long time now.

The first audio CD was released in 1982. The DRM versions came two decades later and were quite successfully suppressed by Philips.

All that was required by Sony-Philips was that the Compact Disc logo not be displayed on a non-Red Book standard audio disc.

I haven't come across a non-format compatible CD for a long time now.

Is that because all CDs are strict red book compliant, or because CD players now work around the incompatibilities?

Is that because all CDs are strict red book compliant, or because CD players now work around the incompatibilities?

I suppose they are red book compliant as my old PC never complained when I ripped them for my Squeezebox network.

EMI dropped copy protection in 2006 (in Canada, we dropped it earlier except when it was forced on us by other international arms of EMI). Other companies, I have no knowledge about although I suspect they have all dropped it. Most Record companies no longer manufacture their own discs anymore. EMI shut down the last plant in 2007 and farmed production out to Cinram. Sony BMG spun off production into a new division Sony DADC, and Universal sold at least one of their plants to Disctronics.

That's not to say the discs are all red book standards though. Discs with extras (ie videos) are multisesson discs which adhere to the blue book standards. There are a number of standards, in fact a whole Rainbow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books).

EMI dropped copy protection in 2006 (in Canada, we dropped it earlier except when it was forced on us by other international arms of EMI). Other companies, I have no knowledge about although I suspect they have all dropped it. Most Record companies no longer manufacture their own discs anymore. EMI shut down the last plant in 2007 and farmed production out to Cinram. Sony BMG spun off production into a new division Sony DADC, and Universal sold at least one of their plants to Disctronics.

That's not to say the discs are all red book standards though. Discs with extras (ie videos) are multisesson discs which adhere to the blue book standards. There are a number of standards, in fact a whole Rainbow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books).

From what I understand, the reason the original CD standard was called "Red Book" is because that happened to be the color of the binder that contained the standard.

From what I understand, the reason the original CD standard was called "Red Book" is because that happened to be the color of the binder that contained the standard.

Yup! Then expanded to CD-ROM in the Yellow Book, CD R/W in the (of course) Orange Book. I had a whole set of them, but pretty much only used red, blue and green.

Companies can be forced to do a lot of things when they are being found guilty of abusing a dominant market position. This includes forcing them to license their solutions right up to breaking up the company. The public is entirely justified to defend an open market against companies that use their dominance to lock competitors out.

This is true. Although Apple's ~10% market share does not give it a dominant market share in e-books or e-book readers.

I'm happy Apple didn't go with "the standard" given THERE IS NO STANDARD that covered what Apple needed done.

Standards ALWAYS lag innovation. ePub isn't even "the standard" for ebooks. It's the "we want to topple Amazon" competitive effort because Amazon's .mobi format IS the standard due to it's market share. Amazon innovated, had first mover status (ok, first SUCCESSFUL mover) and now it's format is THE format.

In order to compete, the rest of the industry has come up with a standard, that really can never be the standard. It's simply _a_ standard. So no matter what, a publisher has to support Amazon's .mobi as it's the market leader, and ePub to reach the rest of the wannabe's (including Apple).

There is nothing like what Apple is trying to do with their interactive ebooks. Apple is working to be the first mover, market maker with it's platform and technology. Apple is doing what EVERY innovator does. No one waits for standards when they are innovating and creating a market.

If Apple succeeds in creating a market for interactive textbooks on the iPad...then Amazon and the rest of the wannabe's will then create an "open standard", which is nothing more than what "must be done" when you are not the one who defines the market.

If you want your material as interactive iBooks and as standard epubs and as .mobi/kindle -- then you are going to have to do the work to make your material available on all those platforms.

Apple has no interest in assisting folks in creating content for rival platforms. That's for the likes of Adobe to come up with software that will assist in the creation of cross platform ebooks. And they will never be as good as the single platform efforts.

Lee

I'm happy Apple didn't go with "the standard" given THERE IS NO STANDARD that covered what Apple needed done.

What was it exactly that Apple needed? I'm talking about functionality because HarryT's example isn't about functionality:
That's right. ePub 3, for example, does "programmability" using Javascript. A ".iBook" file does it using using a custom Apple scripting language.

And if Apple thought that there are different needs than what was covered by the standard then why make the standard like this?

What was it exactly that Apple needed? I'm talking about functionality because HarryT's example isn't about functionality:

View any of the videos on Apple's site and you can see what iBooks do that other books don't....from the top of my head:

Quizzes
Flash Cards
Glossary Builder
Movies
360 viewing of 3D models
Plethora of mock up stuff (flow around irregular shapes, stuff to do with margins and the like)
Integration with web apps/code

Lee

Standards ALWAYS lag innovation. ePub isn't even "the standard" for ebooks. It's the "we want to topple Amazon" competitive effort because Amazon's .mobi format IS the standard due to it's market share. Amazon innovated, had first mover status (ok, first SUCCESSFUL mover) and now it's format is THE format.

Amazon is the standard by numbers, and it's bad, just as it's bad that Microsoft is the standard by numbers on desktop systems. Amazon runs mobi; everything else runs epub. Desktop computers (most of them) run Windows, while everything else runs some version of Unix or Linux.

In order to compete, the rest of the industry has come up with a standard, that really can never be the standard. It's simply _a_ standard. So no matter what, a publisher has to support Amazon's .mobi as it's the market leader, and ePub to reach the rest of the wannabe's (including Apple).

Yes. And IMHO, that's bad. It's not good to have one company that dominates such an important market, be it computers, phones, or (interactive) books.

It seems to me that a lot of this discussion is seriously confused about Apple's epub3 support. Unless I missed something, (1) ibooks 2 IS supporting epub 3, or at least a fair amount of it (I'd like to figure out exactly how much, but as far as I can tell, they are at least ahead of other readers in epub3 support). (2) iBooks author doesn't supporting epub 3 in any shape or form. I'm slightly disappointed about the second point, but it's a reasonable move for Apple under present circumstances. And it seems to me many people in this discussion are confusing the two points, assuming that ibooks 2 will not support epub 3. As far as I can tell, that's not the case at all. It's just that you'll be on your own as far as creating epub 3 content. Personally, I think Apple should have been happy with using iBa to promote the Mac. But they took a hard line so that their software can't be used to make books for androids and other readers. Apple's a hardware company, not a software company, so it's kind of a no-brainer for them.

View any of the videos on Apple's site and you can see what iBooks do that other books don't....from the top of my head:

Quizzes
Flash Cards
Glossary Builder
Movies
360 viewing of 3D models
Plethora of mock up stuff (flow around irregular shapes, stuff to do with margins and the like)
Integration with web apps/code
These are supposed to be possible with epub3 files, except the Glossary Builder which would be a part of the software to make the book, not part of the book itself.

These are supposed to be possible with epub3 files, except the Glossary Builder which would be a part of the software to make the book, not part of the book itself.

There's no limit to what epub3 MAY become. Apple has a shipping product, and epub3 is still in design/discussion/debate/committee phase.

Standards follow innovation, they don't lead innovation.

Lee

Yes. And IMHO, that's bad. It's not good to have one company that dominates such an important market, be it computers, phones, or (interactive) books.

It has always been, and will always be. To the "market maker" go the spoils.

Lee

There's no limit to what epub3 MAY become. Apple has a shipping product, and epub3 is still in design/discussion/debate/committee phase.

I'm not sure you understand the concept of a standard.

I'm not sure you understand the concept of a standard.

I understand the standard ebook format is currently .mobi, a proprietary format owned by Amazon. You know something's a standard when you can ignore all the other formats without facing economic hardship. As it is...you cannot ignore the Kindle if you wish to sell ebooks. You could very will ignore the Apple Store without much harm...or Barnes and Noble, or Sony. Frankly, you could do quite well sticking to Amazon. That's a standard.

Of course, competitors aren't too happy with folks just sticking with Amazon, so they agreed to support a "standard", which is merely a competing format that enables one to reach all the wanna-be's who, in aggregate, still could probably be ignored compared to Amazon.

Of course we, as consumers, desire to have numerous vendors all competing to sell us the same exact object. Causes prices to be lowered, allows us to fire vendors at will with no pain to ourselves. So of COURSE _we_ desire standard formats.

So there will always be an ebb and flow, a tug of war, between the market makers, the gaggle of wanna-be's and the customers.

Customers love innovation, they like new toys, they like new features. These dynamic and interactive textbooks are going to be VERY desirable. And thus customers are going to flock to them BECAUSE there is no competition to speak of.

But eventually the gaggle of wanna-be's, in order to compete with the entrenched market leader, will gang up and put forth "a standard". But it won't really be a standard, just another alternative...and one that will likely leave Apple in the position Amazon is today with respect to text books.

Lee

I understand the standard ebook format is currently .mobi, a proprietary format owned by Amazon. You know something's a standard when you can ignore all the other formats without facing economic hardship.

From here (http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/Standards/WhatIsAStandard.aspx):
ISO/IEC Guide 2:1996, definition 3.2 defines a standard as:

'A document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context'.

ETSI standards could be described in general as being 'definitions and specifications for products and processes requiring repeated use'. They are certainly a set of rules for ensuring quality.

A fuller definition of a 'standard' from an ETSI perspective would be:

'A technical specification approved by a recognized standardization body for repeated or continuous application, with which compliance is not compulsory and which is one of the following:

international standard: a standard adopted by an international standardization organization
European standard: a standard adopted by a European standardization body
national standard: a standard adopted by a national standardization body and made available to the public'.

The definition isn't the only reason why .mobi is not a standard. You seem to be forgetting about KF8, which is the current format pushed by Amazon.

From here (http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/Standards/WhatIsAStandard.aspx):


The definition isn't the only reason why .mobi is not a standard. You seem to be forgetting about KF8, which is the current format pushed by Amazon.

It is interesting how that definition (which I assume is used for programs and the like?) differs from the, umm, standard definition - meaning something that is common, usual, or customary.

The idea of Apple achieving world domination of ebook publishing with iBA seems pretty ludicrous at this point, not only because of the licence agreement, which has most serious publishers scared out of their wits, but also because the feature set is pretty limited. Apple described the program as a "Garage Band for ebooks," and that's basically what it is: a cool but simplistic program for people to play around with publishing. I'm sure some serious musicians go into the studio with Garage Band, but it hasn't exactly put guitars and pianos out of business. Apple's just taking advantage of a huge hole in the ebook software market between the expensive and overly-complicated Indesign and the free but half-baked Sigil. Indesign CS6 will be out in a few months, and unless Adobe seriously screws it up, will remain much more appealing to publishers than iBA. Amazon's been aggressively trying to take publishers out of the picture entirely, while Apple is taking a middle position: publishers can stay in the game if they play by Apple's rules. At the same time, they are following Amazon in trying to lure authors directly.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft put some ebook functionality into MSWord in the future, or Google with Google Docs. The epub format is not all that complicated. Any program that can make an html file can do most of the work necessary to make an epub. Did Apple really add that much to the ebook picture with iBA? Quizzes? A Glossary? A movie at the beginning of the book? 3D objects? Isn't all of this possible in epub 3? The bottom line is that Apple is once again taking advantage of the inability of a group of competing interests (publishing industry, software companies, and schools) to get their shit together, and using that as a a way to sell a few more ipads and macs. It looks to me like a short-term advantage.

From here (http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/Standards/WhatIsAStandard.aspx):


The definition isn't the only reason why .mobi is not a standard. You seem to be forgetting about KF8, which is the current format pushed by Amazon.

Right...and Open Office format is the real document "standard" and not Microsoft .doc

Lee

It is interesting how that definition (which I assume is used for programs and the like?) differs from the, umm, standard definition - meaning something that is common, usual, or customary.
The definition from the document called "Rules for the structure and drafting of International Standards" doesn't seem to be program specific.

Right...and Open Office format is the real document "standard" and not Microsoft .doc
The specifications for .doc files have changed since their initial use. Which version are you talking about?

Apple described the program as a "Garage Band for ebooks"
Well, somebody described it as that before anyone outside Apple really knew what it was, but it wasn't Apple.

Having immersed myself in the program the last couple weeks and being reasonably familiar with Garage Band, I can say it is definitely NOT that.

Sil_liS wrote as part of a post:

The specifications for .doc files have changed since their initial use. Which version are you talking about?

I think this a factor in what is and is not a true standard. To me, one of factors that defines something as a true standard is whether it can be modified unilaterally by a single individual or entity. In the case of the .doc format, Microsoft has the power to unilaterally change it at will and still call the new version ".doc." This is unlike the QUERTY keyboard layout, where no one individual or entity has the power to change the layout of the keys and then call the new version QUERTY.

^^ It's QWERTY, and who would stop me if I decided to rearrange the keys and market it as the same? It would be silly, but there's no reason someone couldn't.

^^ It's QWERTY, and who would stop me if I decided to rearrange the keys and market it as the same? It would be silly, but there's no reason someone couldn't.

:smack: I apologize for the error, the "QU" habit kicked in when I was writing it. :o

Although someone could rearrange the keys and market the keyboard with the new layout as "QWERTY" it would be rejected by users because it's not in compliance with the standard QWERTY layout. It could be marketed under another name, but not as QWERTY. It would be much like someone taking apples and trying to sell them as oranges.