It appears that the author is expressing the position of Project Gutenberg. Is this the case? If not, then I believe he needs to use the same communications channels available to the rest of us.

I would be all FOR an open and honest comparison of ALL the REAL advantages and disadvantages of each of the current ebook reader crop and ALL the real "good for the public domain" vs. "crappy monopolistic" behaviors of each of the major vendors. Buying a real machine today requires a series of hard compromises - including for most of us "loving the one you got." Not that we could ever agree on such comparisons. Thank god for all the real choices buyers have today - including god knows how many different Taiwanese Android tablets on sale close-out through discounters if only one had the time and energy to figure out how to make them all work, IF they work. Personally, if I had all the time, energy and money in the world - and didn't have a wife taking a jaundiced eye at all my "toy" purchases - I think the Nexus 7, the Nook tablet, and the MS Pro Surface all look like fun toys. But one has to actually TRY these things in stores and see if you can actually make them do anything useful. And at least in my case the salespeople always get suspicious as soon as I make even one trial attempt to download a book direct to their store sample from PG and then chase me out of the store -- *nobody* actually wants you to buy their device to use with *free* books!

Here is how the "Review" reads: Kindle Fire Review

From Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free ebooks.

A Review of the Kindle Fire by our webmaster and principal developer. Summary *Buy a Nexus 7 instead and install the Kindle app or stay with the Kindle 3. * To summarize, 1. It's from Project Gutenberg and therefore represents PG's official position. 2. It's PG's review by our webmaster, not his review. 3. We endorse the Google Nexus 7. ... and then it proceeds to thoroughly trash the Kindle Fire entirely based on it's purported advertising policy (which is inaccurately represented in the "Review"). And explicitly and officially recommends by Google's product (wihout mentioning Google.) If this in fact truly represents PG's point of view, or the view of it's principal developer, I can imagine what kind of product or service they can expect to get from PG for my Kindle Fire. So much for PG's impartiality and integrity. The alternative scenarios I can think of are: 1. The site has been hacked. But how could that be, if it's still up? 2. Marcel, or someone else, has misrepresented their authority to speak on behalf of the Corporation. (And why is the attribution to the webmsster and principle developer, without mentioning who that is? Except to reinforce that this is published on PG's authority, and not Marcel's authority.) 3. The PG site url has been hijacked, or actually belongs to some US affiliate of PG that doesn't represent PGLAF. 3. PG is not who I thought they were. Don Kretz

....and, mentioned on the main page that it's the Webmaster's review, not Project Gutenberg's review. -- Greg

You still have the problem Greg that the content of the review is not truthful. I download books directly from my Kindle Fire to my Kindle Fire all the time, directly from the PG site. It can be done and it is being done. Not as well as on previous Kindles, however. I wouldn't call it "locked down." I would simply call it "not a particularly competent software implementation." In contrast B&N products used to make it impossible to download directly from PG, but now at least their tablet makes it pretty clean and easy. One can still "trivially" move content to the Kindle Fire using the "Send to Kindle" application, which is actually very convenient. When I'm doing book dev for example, when I come to a good stopping point, I save my changes, hit "Send to Kindle" and then go check out my process on my Kindle Fire. In summary, his hysteria is based on him not knowing how to use the product. I also don't get any ads, because I made the choice, which was mine to make, that I didn't want to get any ads. He chose to get the ads, and is now throwing a fit about it. Now mind you, if I had to try to write a sausage-maker app that took all the html crap that volunteers throw at it, and try to grind that all down to the narrow subset of html that Mobi7 actually supports, I would be throwing fits too. Mobi8 ain't too bad by comparison -- Mobi7 sucks. And again, Google is itself doing some very bad things in the world of "risen to the public domain books" -- restricting their distribution by licensing agreement among colleges. And Apple in turn is well-known for its "lock you in" monopolistic practices. So: buyer beware, and watch out for the fanatics aka "fans" of one or the other companies.

Learn to read. It looks not thruthful to you because you put things into it which I never said.

You said, quote: " then you have to go through the cumbersome process of downloading the Kindle version of any of our books to your PC, then mail the downloaded file as attachment to your Kindle account." Which is simply not true. It is neither necessary to download books first to the PC, nor it necessary to mail the file as an attachment to your Kindle account. Agreed compared to the K3 the Kindle Fire has taken a step backward re simplicity of download from PG. As a customer, I called this to Amazon's attention soon after I got my Kindle Fire -- that they had broken compatibility with previous models. They promised to fix the problem. Except that they never did. On a more positive note, the Fire's support of mobi8 is a great improvement over mobi7. The bottom line, is however Marcello, just how exactly do you think using PG to shill for Google is going to move the world of free books forward? And what exactly is your superior state of knowledge compared to the actual customer which allows you to suggest you know best? People buy computers, and tablets, for wide variety of reasons. Do you really think, for example, that the primary reason customers buy an iPad or an iPhone is to read PG books? Amazon does crappy things, Apple does crappy things, Google does crappy things, Microsoft does crappy things, etc. PG would do better to spend their limited credibility attacking corporate actions which directly restrict copyright freedoms, such as massively extended copyrights, preventing free distribution of "risen to the public domain" books by legal side agreements, distributing public domain books under DRM, making copyfraud statements and claims about their "ownership" of expired books or images, etc., etc. etc. Why don't you instead use your front page rants to expose all these more serious abuses -- by ALL of the leading players?

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 03:57:24PM +0100, Marcello Perathoner wrote:

On 10/28/2012 04:51 PM, James Adcock wrote:

...

" then you have to go through the cumbersome process of downloading the Kindle version of any of our books to your PC, then mail the downloaded file as attachment to your Kindle account."

Which is simply not true. It is neither necessary to download books first to the PC, nor it necessary to mail the file as an attachment to your Kindle account.

If you know a simple way to get PG files to the Kindle Fire, just state it. If you know nothing, shut up.

It would be great to have instructions, updates etc. for this page: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:MobileReader_Devices_How-To Nearly everything there comes from direct experiences that Marcello and I have had, augmented by Googling for guidance, warnings, ideas, and best practices. In fact, I've offered to buy devices for people who pledge to do an examination and write instructions like these. The offer still stands. The Mobile Reader Devices How-To is a valuable resource, and I plan to keep it updated as new devices become available. -- Greg

On 10/29/2012 08:22 PM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:

BUT, suggesting to buy a particular device over another is not! Especially, if it is in what is proposed as a review.

Is there a law in the U.S. that forbids that? Tell me, because if there was one, I'd have to take the review down. Regards -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org

If you know a simple way to get PG files to the Kindle Fire, just state it. If you know nothing, shut up.

It is simple to get PG files on a Kindle Fire, just use the web browser to navigate to a PG link that says "Kindle" and then click on that link. Then Complete action using "Browser" if presented with a choice of applets which know how to take action on mobi files. The Fire will say "downloading" and a second or two later you are done -- the book IS on the Fire -- the Fire is *much* faster than previous Kindles. The problem now is that Kindle Fire has followed Android behavior of downloading to "Downloads" instead of following traditional Kindle behavior of downloading to "Documents" -- which was historically more convenient. Read more below. It should be obvious to you by now Marcello, that I and others, especially at mobileread.com, have dealt with these issues in depth many months ago when the Kindle Fire first came out. The original Kindles, as I discovered years ago, allowed one to read mobi files which had been downloaded from the web directly, by going to the web browser, and clicking on them, at which time the Kindle would download them to the "Documents" directory. I further discovered that one could put a URL in a mobi book, and invoke this behavior also directly by clicking on that URL inside that book "catalog" , resulting in the "Magic Catalog." Other web browsers do not download directly to "Documents" but traditionally download to a directory called "Downloads." Unfortunately, the Kindle Fire has adopted this common web browser behavior rather than following prior Kindle behavior of downloading directly to "Documents." Presumably Kindle Fire made this change because it is an Android device, and Android applets expect downloads to happen to "Downloads." While Kindle Fire doesn't advertise the fact, it does come with an applet (Quickoffice) allowing one to manage and move files between folders, and it is also possible to pick up other good applets for free which also does these things. There are also applets that allow one to sync and send files to and from Kindle Fire (being a flavor of Android) directly to/from your PC via wifi, which can be helpful during book development. Also, Amazon has an applet for your [desktop] computer called "Send to Kindle" which allows one to send a file from your PC to the Amazon Cloud, with or without caching, your choice, and from there back down via wifi to your Kindle. I do book development on my PC, and then when I want to "take a break" and view how its going on my mobi device, I often find it easiest just to hit "Send to Kindle" -- even though it takes a couple minutes for the file to make it up through the Amazon Clould and then back down again. But its about as simple as clicking on the "Print" button. And I do book development in a downstairs office and often my Kindle is laying around upstairs somewhere, so the two are not collocated in the first place. The Kindles have always had a problem getting them to understand when you have added a new book file "behind their backs" and now they need to refresh their memory and add the new book to the list of books "they know about." The Kindle Fire has this problem somewhat worse than earlier models, presumably because the Fire is based on Android. One simple solution is to "three finger" power down the Kindle and then it checks and fixes its state of knowledge on power up. Most people find this reboot a pain, so there are other work-arounds. For example after a download one can use File Expert to navigate to a book file, put your finger on it for a second or two to bring up a context menu, hit "More" then hit "Open With" hit "More" again and then hit "Amazon Kindle" to read that book file in the "Amazon Kindle" applet. There may be better ways to do all this -- talk to an Android expert -- which I am not. For me overall, the Kindle Fire is more convenient than previous Kindles because it is "Android" -- even with all the limitations that implies -- and it is mobi8, which is miles less of a pain than mobi7 -- and it is much much faster and more reliable in everything it does, especially the web browser. Is it "better" than a Nexus 7 or a B&N Tablet? I think that probably depends on which family of devices you are most familiar with. It also probably depends on which of the various obnoxious monopolistic behaviors of the various obnoxious monopolistic major vendors one personally finds least onerous and odorous. I put up with the limitations of Amazon and mobi8 and even mobi7 for one simple reason: THAT is where the users are. It should also be obvious to everyone that part of these obnoxious monopolistic business practices includes selling reader devices into the market at subsidized prices, in order to try to "capture" your future business. When we buy these devices "below market" and then turn around and use them for free books, then the monopolists do not make their mark. And this makes them unhappy. And then they in turn "turn the screws" and try to engage in even more monopolistic behaviors in the future. Consider, for example, how Google has been constantly tightening the screws around "Google Books." Certainly everyone here must understand that we are not being their little "good buddies" when we don't buy product, but instead engage in making "free books" ! Certainly if you "buy into" an advertising motto like "Don't Do Evil" then you need to get your head examined. Don't inhale, and don't drink the kool-aid.

This intermediate step might be just a bother for tech-savy users, but is a show-stopper for the average Kindle user that prevents them from using free content.

The average Kindle user can't even figure out how to get a book off of PG onto their computer, and from there to their Kindle via USB cable. Most Kindle users are shocked and amazed to find out they can get even free books on their Kindle, and that they are not required to buy everything direct from Amazon.

Android browsers have always allowed applications to grab downloaded files and store them in their respective folders. The only thing Amazon has to do is to provide an url handler for mobi files. If you sideload FBReader to the Kindle then FBReader happily grabs epubs and stores them in its own folder. Why can't the Kindle app do that? Answer: because Amazon has deliberatly crippled it.

Never been clear to me what is maliciousness verses incompetence on Amazon's part. For example did they really intend to permit free book downloads on the original Kindles, or was that an accident? Or did some developer "go rogue" and put this "feature" in without telling management about it. And again, by comparison many of the common web browsers, including the "free" browsers, on desktop computers used to be much more "user friendly" in terms of downloading and auto-launching free books on a desktop than they are now. So its not just Amazon who is crapifying the whole process.

The Nexus 7 is the same device for the same price and yet doesn't put any restrictions on you.

Bull-pucky. Google has put b*-loads of restrictions on Google Books making it more and more a requirement that one own a Google device in order to use Google Books. And Google is sponsoring digitization of old books on campuses in exchange for restrictions that prevent those colleges from being allowed them to distribute those digitizations. Even though those digitizations are of "risen to the public domain" books - i.e. they SHOULD be freely redistributable. This is Google putting the Google copyfraud back onto public domain books.

Then why are you being their good buddy? Why do you defend their restrictive policies. Why don't you stand up for free books?

I don't defend Amazon's restrictive policies, and I don't defend Google's restrictive policies, and I don't defend Apple's restrictive policies. What I do do, as contrasting to what you do, is I try my best to tell people what IS and what ISN'T true and then I encourage people to make their own best choices AND to NOT inhale the fumes nor drink the kool-aid but rather go in with their eyes open and realize the limitations inherit in any particular device and any particular vendor. I read free books, I create free books, I distribute free books, but I also buy books, and even food, from some of these vendors IF AND WHEN I think that they offer good quality good value for a good price. I do not buy from Walmart -- even a "book omnivore" has his limits. I do not buy from Apple, simply because I personally do not like their products. I did buy one daughter an iPhone, and she loves it. She also loves her Kindle, and her PC laptop. I bought my wife an iPhone 5 because she insisted on it, and guess what she hates it. She also tried a Kindle after resisting for many years and now she loves it. Why? Because it works: you can actually read books on it and have fun doing so. In my particular case, I created a little not-for-profit website some years ago to help out my local community and Google "Do No Evil" insisted to everyone that that site didn't even exist -- even if one directly typed the site web address into the Google search engine Google said "sorry site does not exist" -- until I paid Google real advertising fees, and then and only then was Google willing to admit that my site even existed. So when it comes to Google I certainly warn people: "Beware, and do not believe the 'Do No Evil' advertising slogan, because that's all it is -- an advertising slogan." Looking at recent market caps: Market Cap Size: 567 Billion $ Apple 237 Billion $ Microsoft 220 Billion $ Google 108 Billion $ Amazon None of them gets that profitable without engaging in monopolistic practices -- without which pretty much everyone admits software has no market value. Which also doesn't imply that PG is being altogether altruistic with their crappy little legalize bunging everything up.

This is neatly circumvented by The Internet Archive, on which the user "tpb" (The Pirate Bay?) copies Public Domain Google scans at a high rate without the geographic restrictions... Since those scans are PD, this is fully legal, as The Internet Archive has no contractual obligation not to distribute them...

My understanding is that Google does not fully admit that the photocopies of the illustrations in the books are PD. Also not clear to me that everything being scanned is being "publically" made available via Google Books -- some things seem to "come and go" on Google Books -- the scans Google makes available are becoming lower and lower in quality, and the restrictions on downloads that Google is imposing are becoming more difficult, etc. And pages are missing in ways that doesn't always seem like pure incompetence.