MobiPocket seems to be one of the better "closed" formats. From their web site:
Quote:
|
mobigen (formerly known as prcgen): this command line tool allows you to build a Mobipocket eBook from an OPF publication or a single HTML file.
|
One hangup is that mobigen, like Mobipocket Creator, only works on Windows. There have been requests for a Unix/Linux version on their
forum and Mobipockets response was encouraging, but the bottom line is that there is no non-Windows mobigen yet. Another hangup is that there needs to be a mobi2opf command to go back to a non-proprietary format. I think it would be to MobiPocket's advantage to make available source-code for both opf2mobi (mobigen) and mobi2opf. Note that these would obviously be without encription, and would have the effect of making many more books available in the MobiPocket format. I think MobiPocket should do this, but I won't be holding my breath. It should not be all that difficult to produce versions without MobiPocket's support. For example, FBReader already reads unencripted Mobi files, so mobi's file format wrapper to opf is either discoverable or actually documented somewhere.
MobiPocket's Forum includes a
thread on using mobigen under wine. It was reported to work, although the old prcgen was easier to get going.