TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

OpenReader vs. the IDPF’s Esperantos—plural

By David Rothman

The TeleBlog draws many gifted people with the courage to live by their intellectual passions. An Esperanto fan, a Java whiz named Alexandre Rafalovitch, is among our newest contributors. Whether you’re Simon & Schuster or a garage-type publisher, you might enjoy his recent essay on e-books and the language learning market—even if, like me, you’d rather say “Monday” than “lundo.”

Here’s to diversity; let’s not shoehorn everyone into conformity, especially when it comes to content. Why can’t e-books be as easy to use as audio CDs, without such a jumble of standards, so that, yes, an Esperanto advocate can more easily self-publish a book? Or so that small presses can popularize the next James Joyce? Or so the next Thomas Paine can more easily spread around the next Common Sense? The Tower of eBabel, with a zillion and one e-book formats to juggle, is even harder on the small guys than on the larger publishers, which at least can pay translation houses.

Paine-friendly tech as an OpenReader goal

In the end readers don’t give a rat’s rear about technology per se; it’s the diverse content they want—attractively displayed on a wide range of machines. Along with interactivity, a wonderful enabler of diversity, that is a major reason why the OpenReader standard exists. The OpenReader Consortium and its allies want to empower content creators of all sizes rather than letting them simply be captives of Adobe, Microsoft and the like.

At the risk of offending Alexandre—may he laugh with me instead!—I’ll now say how amused I was to see Bill Janssen at PARC sneeringly use the term “Esperanto” to condemn OpenReader along with other e-book formats. Read the next few paragraphs and you’ll see how risibly off-target Bill is in this case despite his general wisdom on e-book matters. Bill writes: “You might think of the current ebook situation as if p-book publishers insisted on publishing everything in translations to their own private language, or on some kind of paper which could only be illuminated with special ‘reading light bulbs.’ Trying to standardize on a common ‘ebook format,’ be it some IDPF creation, some OASIS masterpiece, or even the so-called OpenReader, would only be an attempt to force them all to publish in Esperanto, instead of their house languages. They still wouldn’t have customers.” Bill suggests an emphasis on “standard hardware” and the use of Web browsers.

On Sony’s S list—and proud of it: OpenReader as a threat to the proprietary approach

Well, Bill, I’ll join you in criticizing the linking of formats with hardware. Who do you think is on Sony’s S list? In fact, the TeleBlog is probably at the very top. Sony won’t even send us news releases, and left us our of its Q&A campaigns in the blogosphere. In important ways, OpenReader is the ultimate anti-Sony Reader. We’d love for Sony to adopt the OpenReader standard—the door’s always open, guys—but we’ll never link it with any hardware. The Sony machine can display DRMed e-books only in the pathetic BBeB format, which even Adobe, a fellow proprietary formatter, says will make way for an XML-based standard.

BBeB really exists for no purpose other than to help Sony turn a buck off its proprietary DRM and reduce the choice of books for Sony Reader buyers—to herd them toward the Sony store. It’s a loathsome Gemstar approach, the antithesis of what OpenReader is about. While the Sony Reader can display nonDRMed content in nonproprietary formats, the big publishers continue to insist on “protection.” Simply put, BBeB is format Esperanto in the worst way, and OpenReader is the opposite.

Esperanto, Web-style

As for people reading books via Web browsers, that’s fine by me. Let’s applaud publishers that provide that option. But many and probably most readers would really like a format that allowed a richer range of features, including the most sophisticated typography, than Web browsers will permit. Readers want to be able to download and own e-books for real, in flexible formats on which they can rely for decades. They actually have the gall to want to own e-books—polished-looking books—for real.

Besides, the Web world comes with its own Esperantos, plural. Thanks to browser differences, the TeleBlog looks better in Firefox and the old Internet Explorer than in the new one. It could be years before the browser wars ended. Meanwhile, waiting for this nirvana, do you really want browser-displayed e-books to look like crap? And what about such issues as ease of changing pages/screens? Educators tell me that kids do better with paged e-books than in using a Web browser to scroll through books. So, yes, there is a need for e-book formats. And I, for one, would love to see browser developers do OpenReader-compatible plug-ins.

Stealthy Esperantos from the IDPF’s bullfrogs

But why not other formats such as OEBPS, from the IDPF, especially with the new container format? The trouble is that Adobe and others directing the IDPF “standards” efforts have not pledged to standardize DRM or at least make different systems interoperable.

Proprietary DRM, unchecked, opens the door for Adobe and the rest to go full steam with their Esperantos—both the present, obvious varieties and the future stealthy kinds. While Adobe loves to depict the mainstream variety of PDF as am open standard, keep in mind that one DRM-crazed company single-handedly controls it.

Meanwhile, perhaps partly in response to the IDPF being an Adobe front in many ways, Microsoft is going ahead with its own e-book standards and just might get away with it.

Without a strong commitment to a full solution to the DRM/Esperanto problem and others, the IDPF lacks the moral authority to deal with Microsoft. This is why OpenReader would like the IDPF to move its e-book standards operation to a more neutral venue with a wider range of expert opinions available.

OpenReader’s four-point strategy

Right now, OpenReader is pursuing a four-point strategy of outreach in these areas:

1. Format: As noted, we want to reach out to OASIS to bring a number of people into the format-development process that OpenReader has begun through its draft standard. We want a sea, not a smelly little IDPF frog pond where Adobe and friends get their way, simply because they can croak the loudest. We hope to approach OASIS when we have the resources to do the job right. Care to help, Bill? PARC isn’t exactly cash-strapped. If open e-book standards would clash with PARC’s other interests, then let us know the specifics. We already know you’re personally worried about OpenReader as a Plucker rival—given your connection with that project—but actually you may find common grounds. Both OpenReader and Plucker are nonproprietary.

2. Readers: While we already have a first-rate implementer in OSoft, developer of the crossplatform dotReader, due to appear in beta next month, we’re encouraging other organizations to create their own readers. And a Firefox plug-in or an Opera version? Great! What’s more, if content is in OpenReader, it will be easy for publishers to convert to HTML for “naked” browsers if they want. Or how about conversions to your beloved Plucker, even?

3. Content: We have been in touch with two important public domain projects about the use of OpenReader format–to allow the near-instant availability of many thousands of books in OpenReader—and we have the serious interest of some major commercial publishers.The smarter ones love the sophisticated interactivity that OpenReader allows.

4. Creation tools and related software: In keeping with our devotion to small presses and Tom Paines, and, yes, advocates of the real Esperanto, we’re encouraging the development of tools that small guys can use. Developers can email Jon Noring at jonNOSPAMopenreader.org.

Inside and outside the United States, we are reaching out to the like-minded—in a community-oriented approach aimed at consumers, publishers and the open source community. I hope Bill will reconsider his earlier thoughts and join in. By inaccurately lumping in OpenReader with the customer-hostile IDPF approach to e-text, he does not help the cause of diversity of content; and he actually gives comfort to the IDPF’s advocates of stealthy Esperantos. May this soon change! Come on aboard, Bill. In e-book standards terms, we all should strive to say, “Monday,” not “lundo,” while avoiding DRM gotchas in the Adobe vein.