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notimp · 06-03-2016, 11:22 AM

@jhowell: If this really is the case - I'll take your word for it.

Just please - make sure you dont loose sight of the changes that already happened. The Amazon sanctioned loophole is just that. Its a loophole. And its a loophole by design.

It never will become more, and it becomes a liability - if .kfx doesn't get reversed and Kindles are filling up with those things.

The hacking community already "slipped" a generation at this point - your argument for not pressing for a reversed current file format is that it seems more sustainable, the opposing side to that is, that the idea behind calibre becomes less attractive to many people.

Now to the more in depth stuff. kfx becoming less "humanly approachable" for lets say authors and publishers, is actually a high priority issue as well. You also encounter it in the image delivery subsystem they use for the format - where the "master copy" sits on their servers, and they are delivering downsampled versions, depending on the dpi of your device. If your product needlessly consists of 15 files in two folders...

So at this point, they have managed to do the following things:

They've decoupled themselves from the standard forming bodies, that conceptualized ebook formats as rough equivalents to hypertext. Easy to understand, easy to produce, standardized, open.

They've positioned themselves so they alone would be able to create what I conceptualize as the master copy of any book (the one with all the "features"), whilst authors and publishers would end their workflow in a preliminary format, which Amazon then churns into the final thing. Covers are still loaded from their servers according to a unique identifier, right?

They've decoupled "new features" from firmware releases and made them a value add for a certain format - without any technical need for that, at least currently.

They've stopped releasing PC software that can handle the format until months after the a new format release, which now happens on the same day the press release gets pushed out - via autodelivery - effectively being able to decide when hackers can start trying to reverse the format.

They have transitioned to this new mode of commerce and distribution without bloggers even mentioning it once, or journalists becoming aware of it. Without users agreeing that in many cases they now get delivered a product which "isn't fit for archival purposes anymore", without an opt out to auto delivery.

The loophole they left open requires them actively providing it via their online platform, and users to sideload books they bought via a PC using a USB cable - *checkin' my calender* yep - still 2016.

They have convinced at least one person in here, that they do all of this, because they save processing cycles. (On a 300kb base file in, again, 2016) The advantages of having a format where interoperability, editing, and so forth become issues again - but that is highly optimized for certain processing tasks, seem to lay sever side as well, right? Faster analytics, faster real time metrics, lowering device production costs - while (f.e.) having additional processing active in the background, delivering the actual book in 15 separate files, that might differ from device to device, ...

.kfx certainly hasn't improved page turn speeds - because of faster rendering times on the device. (Nor would that still be needed...)

Being an advocate for the old formats would make sense if the ecosystem wasn't changing - because of the shifts kfx has introduced already, can and should they be ignored?

Amazons strategy of pushing core consumer interests to the fringe and supplementing them with "customer still feels its easy" - from my standpoint has been pushed as far as any informed observer should be willing to accept.

"We'll give them a one file generation headstart in not touching their main file format" is pretty much unheard of from the public interest point of view. In any other sector.

I understand the reasoning behind it - I just might not agree with it in the broader sense. But it is what it is - and consumers now have a chance to feel what it is like to get books delivered to their readers in a file format, that you can still look at (if your access privileges check out) and then throw away (delete), but that isn't fit for much else. :/

06-03-2016, 11:22 AM	#409
notimp Addict Posts: 248 Karma: 892441 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: K2i	@jhowell: If this really is the case - I'll take your word for it. Just please - make sure you dont loose sight of the changes that already happened. The Amazon sanctioned loophole is just that. Its a loophole. And its a loophole by design. It never will become more, and it becomes a liability - if .kfx doesn't get reversed and Kindles are filling up with those things. The hacking community already "slipped" a generation at this point - your argument for not pressing for a reversed current file format is that it seems more sustainable, the opposing side to that is, that the idea behind calibre becomes less attractive to many people. Now to the more in depth stuff. kfx becoming less "humanly approachable" for lets say authors and publishers, is actually a high priority issue as well. You also encounter it in the image delivery subsystem they use for the format - where the "master copy" sits on their servers, and they are delivering downsampled versions, depending on the dpi of your device. If your product needlessly consists of 15 files in two folders... So at this point, they have managed to do the following things: They've decoupled themselves from the standard forming bodies, that conceptualized ebook formats as rough equivalents to hypertext. Easy to understand, easy to produce, standardized, open. They've positioned themselves so they alone would be able to create what I conceptualize as the master copy of any book (the one with all the "features"), whilst authors and publishers would end their workflow in a preliminary format, which Amazon then churns into the final thing. Covers are still loaded from their servers according to a unique identifier, right? They've decoupled "new features" from firmware releases and made them a value add for a certain format - without any technical need for that, at least currently. They've stopped releasing PC software that can handle the format until months after the a new format release, which now happens on the same day the press release gets pushed out - via autodelivery - effectively being able to decide when hackers can start trying to reverse the format. They have transitioned to this new mode of commerce and distribution without bloggers even mentioning it once, or journalists becoming aware of it. Without users agreeing that in many cases they now get delivered a product which "isn't fit for archival purposes anymore", without an opt out to auto delivery. The loophole they left open requires them actively providing it via their online platform, and users to sideload books they bought via a PC using a USB cable - checkin' my calender yep - still 2016. They have convinced at least one person in here, that they do all of this, because they save processing cycles. (On a 300kb base file in, again, 2016) The advantages of having a format where interoperability, editing, and so forth become issues again - but that is highly optimized for certain processing tasks, seem to lay sever side as well, right? Faster analytics, faster real time metrics, lowering device production costs - while (f.e.) having additional processing active in the background, delivering the actual book in 15 separate files, that might differ from device to device, ... .kfx certainly hasn't improved page turn speeds - because of faster rendering times on the device. (Nor would that still be needed...) Being an advocate for the old formats would make sense if the ecosystem wasn't changing - because of the shifts kfx has introduced already, can and should they be ignored? Amazons strategy of pushing core consumer interests to the fringe and supplementing them with "customer still feels its easy" - from my standpoint has been pushed as far as any informed observer should be willing to accept. "We'll give them a one file generation headstart in not touching their main file format" is pretty much unheard of from the public interest point of view. In any other sector. I understand the reasoning behind it - I just might not agree with it in the broader sense. But it is what it is - and consumers now have a chance to feel what it is like to get books delivered to their readers in a file format, that you can still look at (if your access privileges check out) and then throw away (delete), but that isn't fit for much else. :/ Last edited by notimp; 06-03-2016 at 12:24 PM.