On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Jim Adcock <jimad@msn.com> wrote:
David> What has this to do with master formats? Commercial publishers don't
publish their master files, you can at most see their distribution files. Mostly, DRM-ed.
You've misattributed that; that was Carlo.
If your master format *is* your distribution format then at least two good things happen:
1) What people see on their computer the moment before they submit it to PG is the same identical thing they or their friends see when they download it from PG. There is no tool-chain sausagemaker to screw things up.
No, not at all. We've all ran into web pages where they must have been looked at before uploading, but they didn't work in our browser at our settings. That's exactly the issue we're running into here; EPUB takes HTML, but just feeding it EPUB doesn't work. Which doesn't at all address the issue that we don't all want the same master format. There's a demand for HTML for desktops, EPUB and MOBI at the least.
2) If the distribution format is identical to the master format then each distribution into the world is another copy of the master format that is being preserved for posterity, and which immediately becomes useful for any derivative efforts.
And then one day the distribution format is no longer the hot new thing and you have a pile of documents you still have to convert to the formats people want. And the problem is, for that derivative effort or any really, is that distribution formats suck. They match the output format, not what we want to input. If you're doing any serious derivative work, you probably want the TEI-Lite, not the HTML, especially you need page numbers or sidenotes.
In comparison if PG picks an obscure format then the "master file" only lives as long as Amazon has a group of volunteers who are willing to keep the tool chain alive for all eternity. And are willing to volunteer to write to that format. As soon as they get sick of it then the master format becomes dead.
And what? You think that HTML is magically going to be around forever? That no one will ever have to convert the EPUB to anything? As long as there's people interesting in keeping the archive alive, we can target a master format to whatever formats are popular; once there's no one interested in keeping the archive alive, our files will die.
The format is about "as simple as you can get" while still containing the things you really need to be "a book."
Which is interesting mostly if what you're trying to copy is novels. If you've got a book that has a feature that you don't really need to be a book, then you'll have problems. -- Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero.