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Originally Posted by conan50
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Absolutely not!
The same way Microsoft couldn't kill LIT, Amazon can't kill MOBI.
At least one FLOSS software still understands LIT -- calibre.
All LIT books are still perfectly usable (unless they have DRM, which is a separate issue altogether).
While it is true no one bothers with LIT these days, that is because it died from lack of use. Not because
Microsoft killed it.
Amazon can't kill MOBI. They can only stop using it themselves, and even if everyone else goes along with them (not guaranteed) it is still irrelevant, as everyone will simply convert their MOBIs to the next format.
The only reason why "killing" a format, or letting it go "extinct", would have any meaning or relevance, is if you are afraid the contents will remain locked inside those files.
And that is the one thing that won't happen, no matter what.
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Yet I think Epub will have a long life as an open file type.
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Is that because they enjoy the sterling support of Apple and Kobo?
Whatever. This
can't just go away, I guess.
Your ebooks are not any safer because they are in EPUB.
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Perhaps in a perfect world all ebooks would be drm-free plain text files that the reader could format to their own pleasure with options or templates within their e-reading software.
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That is a positively terrifying, horrible idea.
Plaintext files by definition cannot possibly be formatted, with options or templates or anything.
As soon as you add any information that allows you to apply a template or any sort of options (other than a base font and font size for 100% homogenized text), you have magically transmuted it into rich text!
And once you are using rich text, you might as well package it in e.g. a ZIP folder, at which point you have an "EPUB".
This has already been exhaustively discussed here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...=243326&page=7
If you like, you can continue
that conversation,
there.