ZDNET: Apple sabotaging ePub? - Page 7

HarryT · 01-27-2012, 06:54 AM

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.

Sil_liS · 01-27-2012, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by murraypaul

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.

Sil_liS · 01-27-2012, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

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.

HarryT · 01-27-2012, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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?

Sil_liS · 01-27-2012, 07:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

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?

HarryT · 01-27-2012, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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.

Sil_liS · 01-27-2012, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

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.

murraypaul · 01-27-2012, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Quote:

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?

murraypaul · 01-27-2012, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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?

Sil_liS · 01-27-2012, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by murraypaul

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".

Quote:

Originally Posted by murraypaul

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?

murraypaul · 01-27-2012, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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.

murraypaul · 01-27-2012, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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.

Sil_liS · 01-27-2012, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by murraypaul

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.

fjtorres · 01-27-2012, 09:06 AM

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.

murraypaul · 01-27-2012, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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.

01-27-2012, 09:06 AM	#104
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	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. Last edited by fjtorres; 01-27-2012 at 09:10 AM.

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01-27-2012, 06:54 AM	#91
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	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.

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