Quote:
Originally Posted by nickbogaty
Hello all,
I received a number of calls and emails yesterday in regard to the New York Times article on eBooks specific to Amazon's plans to implement open standards in the Kindle. People seemed to be alarmed by the below paragraph in the piece which reads:
"Some also complain about the fact that Amazon is using a proprietary e-book format from Mobipocket, a French company that Amazon bought in 2005, instead of supporting the open e-book standard backed by most major publishers and high-tech companies like Adobe. That means owners of other digital book devices, like the Sony Reader, will not be able to use books purchased on Amazon.com."
Amazon has been very (and maybe smartly) tight-lipped on their release plans for the Kindle and I don't have any special knowledge about development and version plans. However, in the development of OCF and OPS, the two specifications that make up the .epub standard, both Mobipocket and Amazon have expressed to me, the IDPF working groups responsible for the specs and other IDPF members as to their intention to implement .epub. I have every indication that they're going to do this. A clear sign of this is found in Mobipocket Reader 6.0 where there is an option to import OCF files which is the container part of .epub. This takes the OCF file, unzips it, and then converts to .mobi; completely automated. Reader 6.0 was released before OPS 2.0 (the markup part of .epub whose final member vote ends Monday), so I can only assume that their OPS implementation will come in the next version of their Reader software.
Again, I have no inside knowledge of Amazon's development plans, but it seems to me that Times quote might have been based on incorrect information.
Hope this helps,
Nick
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Nick Bogaty
Executive Director
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
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This is fantastic news Nick, thank you for this information. So... We can expect Epub on the Sony Reader, on the iLiad using FBReader and on the Kindle too ? Great news for this format.
I'm glad we're working hard right now on Feedbooks and will support Epub as an output this month ;-)