Could proprietary formatters keep giving us the Tower of eBabel by leaning on e-book publishers to use proprietary add-ons such as Flash? Beware, publishers. For good or for bad, add-ons could matter increasingly as books grow more interactive.
Those are Complex Issues. What to do in terms of fall-back choices, for example, for people whose systems can’t cope with the add-ons? I’ve got enough problems with Flash even in a Web-browsing context. Issues like this are one more reason to move standards development out of a frog pond like the IDPF and into an OASIS-style mainstream with enough top-level techies involved.
Already Adobe’s Bill McCoy is dreaming of Flash becoming a major foundation for interactive books. But can this genuinely jibe with the concepts of openness and interoperability? If so, what precautions should be taken to avoid eBabel? Is it even possible? I’d welcome people’s thoughts.
I myself don’t think that PDF/A-type solutions are a cure-all. PDF/A, for example, given its limitations, is of more more interest to archivists than to the typical e-book user.
Oh, and functionality questions are just the beginning when you get into Flashcentric e-books. What about security issues that may arise in the near or distant future?
Last but hardly least, there are many other questions such as the extent to which a Flash approach would interfere with text-oriented interactivity, or the needs of the disabled.
Related: Cotton candy PR vs. genuine next-generation standard from OpenReader.
(Photo by sadaqah via Flickr. License via Creative Commons.)
David,
I agree that interactivity, however implemented, will be at most icing on the cake for text-centric publications. And so Flash’s role in eBooks is, admittedly, speculative and peripheral to the more immediate goal: ending the Tower of eBabel and enabling all commercially-published content to be made cost-effectively available to consumers in digital form. Until we do this we won’t have a digital publishing industry. I think we agree thus far.
So what many of us are focused on right now is getting the digital publishing industry to converge on a single open XML schema and single-file container format for reflow-centric digital publications to help achieve the above. We are making this happen in IDPF, building on OEBPS. IDPF is absolutely coordinating with OASIS, in which IDPF and many IDPF members are also members. OASIS is a broad-based IT standards organization for whose members eBooks are, unfortunately but not suprisingly, not necessarily top priority, so we can’t expect OASIS to do it all – but the more standards work that can be effectively accomplished in OASIS, the better, IMO.
But, if IDPF supposedly doesn’t have top-level techies, how come everything about your “here and now” [sic] OpenReader format adopts the new IDPF OCF as the container, your “Basic Content Definition” is effectively just a clone of the OEBPS 1.2 Basic Profile, and your Binder admits to being “significantly influenced” by the OEBPS Package Document and repeatedly describes features as “adopted from OEBPS”? If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it would appear that you and Jon Noring must think very highly of IDPF technologists! Especially since the rest of the OpenReader format, which presumably might not be IDPF-derived, are still “in preparation”.
OEBPS specs are largely just carefully-crafted subsets of underlying broader standards like XHTML, CSS, and ODF. So it’s not like there’s any tremendous de nova innovation here, one way or another (which is right and proper – standards bodies are not the place for experimental innovation). But if the objective we have is convergence and interoperability, rehashing other organization’s specs in order to republish them as putatively new works is just an impediment to us all getting to goal. Forking attempts (if overt) only help the peddlers of proprietary alternatives argue that the open source/standards community can’t get its act together (a la the Linux GNOME vs. KDE fiasco). Disguised forking attempts are even worse, IMO.
TeleReaders, if you think I’m being harsh – check out http://www.openreader.org/spec/ and speak up, as I’m curious what others think. Can anyone tell me what’s actually new vs. IDPF’s work (current and in progress)?
Meantime, I encourage those who want to foster industry growth to join IDPF and help achieve the OpenReader goals, which which I agree (other than those which involve promotion of specific egos and pocketbooks). IDPF has vendors large and tiny, publishers, and governmental/academic institutions all coming together with well-defined processes in a structure that lets us move fast and get things done to make the digital publishing industry take off.
Bill, my own belief is that Adobe wants to use the core format as a way to help serve up massive doses of proprietary stuff such as Flash. I don’t think Adobe sees Flash as just peripheral to e-book format issue. May I be wrong! At any rate, I find it significant you spent more space attacking OpenReader than defending your Flash dreams. Furthermore, I believe that interactivity in a text context is a must in many books. I’m talking about human-to-human interactivity–as opposed to saying telling the software, “Give me more of those cartoon characters.” OpenReader is all about interactivity.
About OASIS: The best coordination would be a an e-book-related tech committee working under OASIS rules. That’s how both OpenReader and the IDPF would get access to talent–except it would be outside the IDPF sandbox, where you couldn’t control it as easily. Meanwhile ETI’s chairing of two crucial IDPF committees shows the shallowness of the talent pool available at the IDPF. We at OpenReader wants the strongest possible standards effort. That’s exactly why we want to focus on getting a robust standards-setting initiative going via an OASIS-type technical committee. Ideally you can reverse Adobe’s policy and back us up rather than getting in the way. Contrary to what you write, I believe that the OASIS approach would be responsive to specific industry concerns. It would also result in more intelligent examination of proposed DRM solutions. Increasingly, it’s becoming evident that it’s the IDPF, not OpenReader, that is trying to justify its existence, at least in a standards context.
More on your OpenReader comments themselves: You’re way off-mark. On important matters such as reliable deep-linking, OpenReader is intended to make a major difference compared to OE. Furthermore, Jon has acknowledged in his specs that he picked up the existing OEBPS stuff. At the same time the language is different. Bottom line is that OpenReader is no more or no less than billed–a turbocharged OEBPS. Jon can reply in greater detail if he has time.
An aside to everyone: The TeleBlog’s anti-spam eDobermans keep attacking Bill’s posts–apparently because adobe.com is on some kind of a blacklist. I spent an hour just now, working on this problem, and have his IP number on a white list, which may or may not be a solution. Meanwhile I’ve told Bill the same thing I’d recommend to others: Always tell me when your comments do not go through. I can almost surely rescue them from the eDobermans if I learn of the problem soon enough.
Thanks,
David