Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
This is a battle to maintain a Walled Garden.
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The more things change, the more they remain the same. Fighting to maintain a Walled Garden of some kind has been the name of the game since one group of cavemen made a technological advance over their neighbors. And it will remain this way as we encounter sentient alien life forms from across the universe.
The Browser Wars was all about maintaining control and licensing fees (via file formats & extensions) - similar to the current ebook situation. Despite various commercial entity's best efforts at monopolizing the net, users got tired of the squabble, demanded compliance and won. Strangely, the commercial entities discovered they
could adequately support the existing (and future) standards. Within a relatively short time (~1.5 years?) the standards were correctly supported.
As ebooks saturate the market there is going to be an ever increasing pressure to allow interoperability - exactly like the Browser Wars. Sooner or later a judge will uphold the concept that the data (text, images, and other contents) does not have to be restricted to a single product manufacturer's preferred format and that "fair use" applies here as well.
Which is why I said to give it 5 years, minimum, for things to
start to change.