[SerialAeon]

Hello,
I'm "doing" computer stuffs since 15 years now I got tired of the endless format wars: pictures, videos, and now... eBooks. There is almost a dozen actively fighting formats for now, almost all platform-specifics. My question is the following: in my mind, an ideal solution would be to store the eBooks in a simple, open format that store the text, the layout (titles, chapters, sections, etc.) and any possible meta-data (type of book, etc.). Then, to offer a conversion pipeline from/to this 'nexus' format to any other commercial/proprietary/(add any wanted adjective) format.
For now, when looking at repositories like Project Gutemberg, this nexus format seems to be ... plain text, which is not very satisfying. As usual, this kind of project started when nobody cared about metadata or text layout, and now it will be a pain (according to my experience; I'm maybe wrong ?) to propose them on such a big repository.

My question is: does an ideal universal format exists ? As a biologist, I know by experience that the Darwin theory of evolution will (again) apply, and that in few years only one or two format will stay, all the other being dropped in the trash can of evolution. These one or two remaining formats will then become the de-facto universal ones. But I'm interested by the opinion of guru here that certainly know much more than me on this subject.

Aurelien