Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that epub was primarily meant as a tool for publishers rather than end-users. Isn't the idea that a publisher will produce a book in epub format, and then convert the resulting epub file into various device-specific formats?
Forgive me if I've got this completely wrong!
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I don't see anything in the specifications or on the IDPF web site that states that epub is not for use by the end-user. The fact that the standard also includes a specification for a container (Zip) to package all of the various files, as well as specifying how that container and included files are to be parsed by
reading systems, tells me that the IDPF does indeed expect end-user devices to use epub. If epub was only for publishers, none of this would be necessary and the IDPF would not have wasted many hours on this part of the standard. Why should they care how publishers deal with multiple files internally? Having a standard format like epub does indeed make things easier for publishers, but that doesn't preclude the use of the format for end-use.
We already have three reading systems that directly support epub: Digital Editions, FBReader and Lector. A fourth, DotReader, claims support, but I haven't seen it work yet. Assuming that DotReader gets epub working, that makes two commercial entities (one very large one - Adobe) and two Open Source entities. I'd say that's not too bad for a standard that is only a few months old. And as we all know, Digital Editions is being ported to the Sony Reader. I would be very surprised if Adobe dropped epub support in the process.
And as for vivaldirules question about why he should care, I think we all should care. Pushing epub for the end-user and not just the publisher holds the promise of reducing the myriad of ebook formats that we have to deal with today. The more widespread epub becomes, the better for all of us. It certainly isn't a perfect standard, but it is a good start.
Another very good reason to want epub for the end-user is that the standard currently does not include DRM. This may be added to the standard later. If it does, at least it will be one standard way of doing it, and not the incompatible, different DRM schemes that each format has. Besides, if epub gets widely popular on reading systems before a standardized DRM method is approved, that would be one more nail in the DRM coffin.
We all bitch about having to deal with multiple ebook formats and DRM. These are the two primary reasons why everyone should care about epub use by the end-user. Sure, it doesn't do much for you as an end-user today, but what about tomorrow?