[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by notimp

@darryl: I wish I had read this sooner...

You are making an argument I never made, and then #WINNING against it. It's an old method.. Sprinkle a few "plethoras" in there for style - and call it case closed?

Well...

Originally Posted by notimp

[...]

Also - when I proclaim that Amazon is in no way positioned to be an entity that has cultural development or plurality of public opinion in their DNA - thats fine, because Hollywood hasnt either? Also - of course, Amazon isnt a content creator in the eBook space - they just own the current eBook (no one else can create it, no one else should be able to understand it) format in the space - and their ambitions on other sectors (digital content) should be seen entirely separate from...

Originally Posted by darryl

J@notimp. Amazon is not a monopoly! KFX, like Adobe’s new DRM, is a matter for concern. But the sky is not falling now. And this cultural development guardian type argument seems to me to be little more than a pretixt to protect vested interests at the expense of the consumer. Amazon is probably better and certainly no worse than the large publishers so far as preservation of culture is concerned, unless you limit culture to require a plethora of protected bricks and mortar bookstores. And the issue of “plurality of public opinion”, as you put it, has been somewhat topical with the recent Authors United sham debate. It is simply ridiculous to argue that legacy publishing, which rejected 99% of works submitted to them, is better for the free expression of ideas and optinions than publishing with Amazon, which allows virtually anyone to publish. Please feel free even now to actually engage.

Seems a fair response to me.
Well, mainly because it is difficult to make out what you are actually saying, but it *seems* to involve Amazon having too much ambition and they shouldn't be allowed to take charge of cultural development.
Or something.

I am not arguing for brick and mortar (I am sorry folks, but 40% of commerce soon will be online only). I am halfheartedly arguing for "the other publishers", but only as a means to be able to get out of the quagmire that has already opened up.

Oh, good.
Because we never said you were arguing for brick and mortar. Speaking of the construction and beating of strawman arguments, it is entirely possible you have some small talent there yourself.

Granted that darryl mentioned brick-and-mortar businesses, but that was in relation to totally different point sometimes made by anti-Amazon fanatics -- and not one which you were accused of supporting.

I would also argue that Amazon will be a worse "cultural entity" in maintaining the "essence" of the book, than if you'd keep the stakes (as in "has to and also can still produce an ebook") distributed and not have people all follow their model of - "hyphenations for the masses only if they buy our premium format" and "how about we look over your shoulder, count the pages you read, and then distribute funds accordingly -- hey its the advertising model - its great.."

Also - regarding the "library" sidedebate... When was the last time you had to watch ads, or got billed there in regards to the "involvement" you showed in the book you borrowed.

Also - in a recent patent filing Amazons lawyers - "in the flavor text" stated, that they would take over the lending and used market also - simply because, for them - there is no additional expense. Again, the infrastructure already is in place. Think about that for a while.. Just keep pondering on the idea for a bit. I am sure, you'll reach the same conclusions I did.

Please understand, that I am not repeating the "Amazon is bad" arguments that are out in circulation for years, I became critical of Amazons highly controversial approach to this market - after .kfx was released - and everybody failed to report on the fact that we will probably never be able to remove its DRM (not unless Amazon releases PC software that decodes it to be able to view it) -- and everyone else was cheering it on for excluding (easy) hyphenation from all Books that don't go through their "special treatment".

Wait, so Amazon is bad for culture after all? Just like darryl understood you in the first place (and argued against)?

It was a genuine "is this the wrong movie, or.." moment. Before it became very apparent, that people were simply reproducing the marketing lines. You know - like any good online community (I hope it stings.. ).

Yes, .kfx is still a problem - as you identified correctly - and it will get worse over time (because distribution as the main file format is ongoing).

Nope, still not a problem.
My life is blissfully KFX-free to date.

How about a little more provocative statement to end this with..

The old guard in this forum is motivated mainly by brand loyalty and the notion that they have invested countless hours in what, after a few years, amounts to "manage custom screensaver for prosumers" - because Amazon took away from them everything else.

They arent allowed to understand the device, the renderers on it, or the file format. When they tried to make sense of it anyway - Amazon slapped them in the face - so hard, that they took it to heart and never dared to do it again.

But that no one said a word - when the default file format was taken away from them, that makes it somewhat tragic. Because thats the most important cornerstone.

Actually, we can do a bit more than just custom screensavers.
There are a number of quality-of-life hacks for people who just want to read their books, including but not limited to KOReader, Collections Manager, the font hack...
Some people use the Kindle as a handy-dandy E-Ink screen using VNC...
Others exploit the capability of a portable, WiFi-enabled linux box with a screen...

The only thing that has been taken away that I can think of is Ixtab's JBPatch-powered UI mods. And his reaction to Amazon's slap was to only support one firmware revision per hardware model.
Then he left because he finally got his Ph.D. and had to get a life.

You might be slightly confused though, because you keep on mentioning us not understanding the renderers and the file format.
The Kindle Developers Corner doesn't give a $%#@^ about either. Read our subforum description: "Linux, hacking and development of software and hardware". We care about freeing the hardware and running custom software and enabling people to mod the renderer if they happen to have the requisite skills -- and that was mostly Ixtab.
There is a totally unrelated "Kindle Formats" subforum, go bother them if you want to know about the file format.

Also, Kovid really should talk more on this issue - because the next push will be to convince people, that it is so much easier for them just to use Amazon to manage their .kfx libraries. And the kicker? It really is, because its .kfx .. (#usingcalibreishard)

Nope. calibre's official stance is that you should download AZW3 as a long-term archival format, using either http://amzn.com/myk or Kindle for PC.
I do not anticipate that stance changing, even once KFX has been reverse-engineered.

edit: Also in light of the recent developments on the Fire TV front - start thinking about when you don't want people to update their Kindle firmwares anymore - because after all Amazon just introduced a "blocked apps" database to their Android build (thats novel! yes! and here is what it does: Lets say you sideload an app they don't like. On each reboot disable any app thats on the list on a system level so the user not only cant use, or update it - but also cant deinstall it on the UI level, rewrite adbd - so the thing the app you dont like (a launcher btw - to be more specific - a launcher without ads, unlike the one Amazon would like you to use in the future..) does (read a logcat) can't be reintroduced - not without distributing it with an old, packaged, version of that library - and finally - inject yourself in between the command line interface and the system - so when the user tries to launch any app blocked by Amazon, the call errors out).

I am mentioning this, because from a small group of consumers, the reaction to this was "you have to update - to stay in the loop, and because of potential security issues - YOU could become part of a botnet". The same argument that was used in here, around the "responsible disclosure" event. So please - don't get too used to slinging it around - it can come back and bite you...

Finally - a Linux consumer device with a "blocked apps" feature - we had to wait for it soo long... It currently blocks two launchers - simply, because Amazon wants you to spend more time looking at their ads.

Dunno, don't care.
But yeah, security is a really good thing.

Personally, I don't need Amazon's personal take on what an Android tablet should be, but I do have a certain limitation on decent E-Ink ereaders.
Given that the ereader was always and is still more open (as a generic computing device) than the tablet, I'm okay with the situation.

Also on a sidenote - never even think about changing the Kindles UI. But thats nothing new to you... You learned that one a while ago! (Still, hope it stings...)

Nope. Again, Ixtab was the main person supplying UI modifications. He was our resident Java genius. And he had to leave regardless.

For the readers that are not keyed in - in the past Amazon changed their file obfuscation each and every time someone in here identified how their renderers (reader software) on the Kindle work and started to realize functions like custom page borders (all directions) or better hyphenation. I never understood why people in here let that slide... Or to be more precise - why it is seen as a thing in the past - and usually not talked about.

Its a culture thing..

I never understood why no one reacted - when they banned this communities (easy) hyphenation solution - and then turned around and started marketing it as a "premium" feature - for the new closed (no, no - its "exclusive") file format, they then imposed on to this community (and everybody else). It baffles me.

Possibly because I don't consider it a feature.