Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
With ePub, every device maker has to reinvent the wheel, and come up with their own dictionary implementation,
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False. They just have to adopt some "standardized" format, like stardict or XDXF, instead of trying to play as Apple does with its devices... the "reinventing the wheel" thing is done on purpose, in this case, I suspect.
BTW, I do not think that EPUB specs should rule the dictionary mechanism. The only thing I think they should include is some sort of
optional support to language tagging, so that I can have some text in, say Italian, inside an ebook that is written in English. By properly marking these "enclaves", an e-reader can offer better support to things like text-to-speech or dictionary lookups.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
and only the big players - the Sonys and B&Ns of this world - can afford to license decent, modern, commercial dictionaries. The smaller players, such as Bookeen and Pocketbook, can only use what's in the public domain.
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This is the main reason why Bookeen is using GPL-ed / CC-ed source.