Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
You'd think that, between librarians and historians, e-book readers, e-book sellers, e-book manufacturers, and e-book publishers, that you had enough people that agree that a document (software) format solution is needed. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be enough people to create a quorum to discuss all the issues, and come up with a solution.
As far as storage (hardware), the biggest problem there has always been the lack of thought to backwards compatability when upgrading to new formats. This is the same issue as with doing regular and proper backups, and that cause is simple laziness.
In either case, the problems are easily solveable by simply getting everyone involved together, and getting them dedicated to finding the solution. The solution will kick-start the industry, making everyone happy. It just amazes me that we've had to wait so long for everyone involved to come to their senses and "git 'er done."
Microsoft's solution is typical of them: "Yes, we agree that we all need a standardized format. Here, use ours!" A better solution for MS documents is to convert them to HTML (using their own tools), then strip out all the extraneous XHTML that they add (which is only there to reconvert their HTML back to their applications, and is otherwise useless).
But as I've maintained, an HTML- or XML-based format is already established and usable. MS should be embracing OEBPS, if they want to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem.
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I have the perfect solution to the problem.....
Store the books on the server in some format HTML/XML would do) and then when someone wants to purchase a book, they specify the format and the site generates it for them. So all formats can be supported. That would work quite well and it means all formats can then be supported until they standardize.