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Originally Posted by Crusader
What? ePub works perfectly on Windows so can't see why it has anything to do with Linux.
As for Amazon - they can stay in their cacoon of device lock-in and non-open standard formats. The Kindle is not the "One True eBook Reader" even if Amazon would like people to believe it is.
As long as other eBook stores offer open formats like ePub I'll support them even if it is more expensive than Amazon - at least I'd be able to take my books with me if I switch devices.
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You are confusing format with DRM support. Mobi works perfectly fine on many devices (and PC types) and is just as convertible as EPUB.
However, Amazon's DRM only works with their devices, the iphone and Microsoft based PC's (or emulators, which includes Mac and Linux) at the moment. With other devices to come, just not the Nook or Sony.
Sony will be selling epub in the future and so will B&N - neither do so far and both use their own proprietary format and DRM. Both have announced they'll do their own DRM when they do support EPUB. Nook will require a credit card to unlock and is incompatible with ADE until Adobe does an update; no word on how Sony will modify the DRM, yet, but so far they seem to want to lock you into their device and store, so suspect the new version will do the same (be limited to their software and their device).
The advantage Sony & B&N have is that they support generic EPUB DRM, while Amazon does not (not that they could not change this anytime they wanted to, since they own the company they license the DRM from, so could add generic Mobi to their device). Amazon could easily add DRM-free epub support, but adding another DRM format is more difficult, in that the licensing often has an exclusivity clause (if you do EPUB, you can't do any other; Mobi most definitely has this, which is why at least one device switched ... perhaps good for new users of that device, not so much so for those with larger DRM'd Mobi libraries that found them unreadable after upgrading).
True portability requires removal of DRM (as a whole, not the illegal removal of it by the consumer). This would then force stores to compete on price, just as they do with paper books. Here, Amazon is already a clear winner, but it would force Sony to at least join the game, just as moving to non-DRM'd MP3's has forced Apple to compete in the music field. Doesn't seem to have hurt their ipod sales much, but there is true competition there for hardware and content, unlike in the book industry.