Comments on: No Newsweek hoopla, but the main e-book standards group is quietly working toward a level playing field http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/01/idpf-election-a-promising-crop-of-candidates-devoted-to-e-book-standards/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:07:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Jon Noring http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/01/idpf-election-a-promising-crop-of-candidates-devoted-to-e-book-standards/comment-page-1/#comment-643334 Jon Noring Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:09:58 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/01/idpf-election-a-promising-crop-of-candidates-devoted-to-e-book-standards/#comment-643334 Joseph Gray wrote: <blockquote> While we’re on the subject of IDPF, there was a recent discussion on MobileRead about the purpose of epub. Some were taking the position that epub was not intended for use as a distribution format to the end user, but only as a standard for publishers to use on the backend. I contend that epub is intended for both uses. In fact, I see its greatest impact as a final distribution format to the consumer, to provide a single, cross-platform ebook standard. It would be good if someone from IDPF would clarify this one way or the other. </blockquote> Speaking with first-hand knowledge, having been a technical contributor since 1999 to all versions of OEBPS and the new OPS/OPF (which underlies EPub), Joseph is right. Prior to the release of OPS/OPF 2.0, which replaced OEBPS 1.2, OEBPS was termed an “exchange format.” This was mainly, but not entirely, done for political expediency since at the time there were major players in the Open eBook Forum (OeBF, the prior name of IDPF) who did not want OeBF to advocate a particular end-user format (things have changed since then.) However, in all our internal working group deliberations and decision-making, we certainly considered native OEBPS for use as an end-user format, in addition to it being an intermediary format (refer to the OEBPS/OPS specs and carefully read the definition of a “reading system.”) Importantly note that, in a sense, native OEBPS has already been used for a number of years by end-users: Microsoft LIT. LIT is essentially an OEBPS 1.0.1 Publication wrapped into a proprietary container. In summary, EPub makes an excellent e-book delivery format. Hopefully this reply will finally put to rest the misconception that EPub is not intended to be a universal reflowable e-book format. Joseph, feel free to forward this comment to MobileRead since you're following that particular thread. Joseph Gray wrote:

While we’re on the subject of IDPF, there was a recent discussion on MobileRead about the purpose of epub. Some were taking the position that epub was not intended for use as a distribution format to the end user, but only as a standard for publishers to use on the backend.

I contend that epub is intended for both uses. In fact, I see its greatest impact as a final distribution format to the consumer, to provide a single, cross-platform ebook standard. It would be good if someone from IDPF would clarify this one way or the other.

Speaking with first-hand knowledge, having been a technical contributor since 1999 to all versions of OEBPS and the new OPS/OPF (which underlies EPub), Joseph is right.

Prior to the release of OPS/OPF 2.0, which replaced OEBPS 1.2, OEBPS was termed an “exchange format.” This was mainly, but not entirely, done for political expediency since at the time there were major players in the Open eBook Forum (OeBF, the prior name of IDPF) who did not want OeBF to advocate a particular end-user format (things have changed since then.)

However, in all our internal working group deliberations and decision-making, we certainly considered native OEBPS for use as an end-user format, in addition to it being an intermediary format (refer to the OEBPS/OPS specs and carefully read the definition of a “reading system.”)

Importantly note that, in a sense, native OEBPS has already been used for a number of years by end-users: Microsoft LIT. LIT is essentially an OEBPS 1.0.1 Publication wrapped into a proprietary container.

In summary, EPub makes an excellent e-book delivery format. Hopefully this reply will finally put to rest the misconception that EPub is not intended to be a universal reflowable e-book format.

Joseph, feel free to forward this comment to MobileRead since you’re following that particular thread.

]]> By: Joseph Gray http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/01/idpf-election-a-promising-crop-of-candidates-devoted-to-e-book-standards/comment-page-1/#comment-643234 Joseph Gray Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:48:19 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/12/01/idpf-election-a-promising-crop-of-candidates-devoted-to-e-book-standards/#comment-643234 While we're on the subject of IDPF, there was a recent discussion on MobileRead about the purpose of epub. Some were taking the position that epub was not intended for use as a distribution format to the end user, but only as a standard for publishers to use on the backend. I contend that epub is intended for both uses. In fact, I see its greatest impact as a final distribution format to the consumer, to provide a single, cross-platform ebook standard. It would be good if someone from IDPF would clarify this one way or the other. While we’re on the subject of IDPF, there was a recent discussion on MobileRead about the purpose of epub. Some were taking the position that epub was not intended for use as a distribution format to the end user, but only as a standard for publishers to use on the backend.

I contend that epub is intended for both uses. In fact, I see its greatest impact as a final distribution format to the consumer, to provide a single, cross-platform ebook standard. It would be good if someone from IDPF would clarify this one way or the other.

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