Quote:
Originally Posted by rlauzon
To me, "selling" an eBook in a non-transformable format is almost as bad a putting DRM on it. Almost all the same restrictions are there.
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I see you're point, but I find it less compelling than you seem to.
PDF isn't going away totally any time soon, it's too widely used, so it's about as permanent as you can get for these things. An unlocked PDF lets me move it around and use it as I please, so I can keep it regardless of what my hardware does.
About the only thing I
can't do with it is easily pull the contents out. Yes, that's not a good thing, but it's largely the same for most widely
used formats out there, so it's not like it's uniquely malicious or anything.
If a "publishers" criteria is to reach as many people as they can, without requiring those folks to jump through lots of hoops and to make their "book" as portable as possible, it's hard to blame them for looking at unsecured PDF. You really have to dig into things to find the drawbacks, and that sort of minutia isn't the sort of thing "publishers" tend to be good at.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that PDF isn't the best format for anything except its designed purpose (that being preservation of document formatting/layout and contents across platforms), but I just
cannot agree with you that choosing it can
only be interpreted as a sign that the "publisher" is specifically and expressly out to screw over his customers.
