Am 06.02.2012 um 05:54 schrieb Jim Adcock:
Keith>PG is a repository and it is not PGs responsibility to offer the etexts therein in any particular format.
Sorry, but what I always heard Michael talk about was books for people to share and read. Not books locked up behind closed doors in a repository. TRUE! BUT, he also said plain vanilla text, for the repository! You have not refuted the fact that PG is responsible for any particular format. PG does offer formats for reading, just like any good repository should.
If you don't want people to read the books, then the archive.org photocopies of pages is a more than adequate solution. If you do want people to read the books, then you quickly realize that what archive.org is doing (or Google books) really doesn't cut it. Which is why some of volunteer to do the hard work to make something which can actually -- in practice -- be read on real machines by real people.
*Does* PG offer books in acceptable format for reading? Yes, if you want to read HTML in an HTML browser on a desktop computer with a 20" monitor. Almost all PG texts are of "high quality" when read under that criteria. But, the problem is what you want is that PG bows to your machine or a particular one or all reading machines on earth or anything in between.
That is not the purpose of PG. PG is there to preserve books and offer them to those willing to read.
However, not many of the general public is interesting in curling up in bed with a nice 20" monitor.
Does then PG offer adequate quality for small personal reading devices? EPUB, Android, Mobi devices? Nope, most of the files display as "scrambled eggs" -- because a half dozen lines of their CSS doesn't make any sense, having been hard-wired to the assumption that this file will only be read on a 20" screen.
Is that the fault of PG or someone else. You could just refactor the CSS. and VOILA. At least that what the standards say and those format for those devices should conform to. Talk about the REAL WORLD. regards Keith.