So how are efforts coming to create a common e-book format at the consumer level–rather than tolerate the costly Tower of eBabel?
Below, slightly edited, is most of a note that Jon Noring, moderator of the 2,384-member eBook Community List, posted on a Project Gutenberg list. OpenReader, as a community effort, welcomes qualified programmers as well as feedback from writers, publishers, retailers, accessibility activists, librarians, archivists, and others. Reach Jon at jon@openreader.org.
Plan A for the OpenReader 1.0 code base (there is a Plan B) is 75% complete (and in good shape).
Because of a request not to discuss it in any more detail, I can’t say any more on this except that the people working on it are really sharp and active in the XML and CSS worlds (the founder actively serves on the W3C CSS working group), with a proven track record in creating a real-pudding, honest-to-god, and excellent XML+CSS-based product. They know their document rendering stuff as well as anyone.
We are seeking support to finish the last 25% of the job, since they are a commercial outfit with professional programmers and an investment in the code base they do have, so that is holding things up, but the needed support is small, and the final codebase will be donated and released under an open source license under the control of the Consortium (discussed below).
It’s a much better approach than kludging something together from scratch since the codebase we are starting from is of very high commercial quality, fast, compact, and supports many of the advanced features we need such as SVG and advanced font-handling (not to mention probably the best CSS parser in the world, and of course fairly complex XML document handling capabilities suitable for OEBPS).
It is also fully cross-platform (it is primarily developed for Linux but already portable to Windows, thus it will easily port to Windows and Mac OS X, both desktop and mobile flavors. Support for legacy Mac and Palm is detailed at our web site (for the Plucker developers reading this, I’d like to chat with you!).
However, there is more than just issuing the open source code base. We also need to intelligently hammer out the OpenReader encapsulation format spec (which is intended for more than just ebooks, such as encapsulating web sites to compete with Microsoft’s proprietary MHT format), and most importantly the OpenReader conformance requirements, so anyone else building their own OpenReader browser will not deviate too far from the vision.
We will encourage competitive OpenReader browsers. Mozilla, Opera, and Safari folk are all capable of building their own OpenReader versions, although it won’t be trivial for them since they will need to add SVG support and higher typographic rendering capability including “paged” display which at present they don’t do for web browsers.
We will balance out the need for following strict conformance rules in order to use the name “OpenReader” with a desire not to stifle innovation. I believe we will reach a proper balance.
In addition, it is important to establish a Consortium, which is simply an organized group of various key players in the ebook and digital publication worlds who want OR to succeed (and are dedicated to both open source and open standards in the digital publication industry) since they will take advantage of it in some way which will benefit them (either profit-wise for profit companies, and for non-profits it will further their goals).
The Consortium (comprising the members, and not any one individual such as yours truly) will hold the IP to the OpenReader trademark so as to enforce conformance requirements, and to maintain and improve the specifications via established Technical Working Groups, either working under OpenReader or maybe under some other umbrella organization (I’ve been offered the DAISY-NISO umbrella, for example).
So a lot of effort is going on behind-the-scenes to build the needed relationships and interest in the Consortium, and we’ve had a great increase in interest in the last couple weeks, with some fairly big names in the ebook universe deciding to throw their name behind the OpenReader vision. I don’t believe we are at “critical mass” yet, but we are definitely getting a lot closer. Will the little train make it over the hill? We’ll see.
Of course, anyone reading this, whether representing a company or organization, or simply an interested individual, who wishes to publicly state their support/endorsement for OpenReader (with no other obligation asked for), please contact me in private. We are preparing a supporters/endorsers web page showing the logos of companies/ organizations with links, and the names/affiliations of individuals.
Names welcomed! Just email Jon.
Reminder: I’m personally among the founders of OpenReader. Hey, some defenders of the Proprietary Format Mafia challenged me to stop griping and do something postive. Very pleased to oblige!
