DotReader.com adr. [Re: OpenReader vs. the troll in the basement [re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries]]
Actually that's http://www.dotreader.com , not .org --mea culpa--and if PG really cares about open source, then it should encourage strong open source efforts of the OSoft variety rather than just wait until they catch on. Here's a little two-man software house in Tacoma, Washington, gambling hundreds of thousands of dollars on an open-source reader that can do far more than Plucker, allowing blogs and forums to be embedded inside books. Plucker has many appreciative users, but dotReader/OpenReader will be of far greater importance to commercial publishers, who are already starting to show interest. In turn, that'll be wonderful for PG works and other public domain books. dotReader reader can work with many kinds of books while improving the user experience. dotReader uses a turbocharged version of existing e-book standards that techies and publishers have thrashed aroundfor years. It's the best of all worlds: open source for programmers and a powerful free reader for users--and e-book standards similar to existing ones for publishers. Plus, dotReader can handle other XML/CSS-related formats as well.
We serverd 89504 plucker books in May 2006.
I think you'll do much better with OpenReader available as well. OSoft's e-reader for the format is a thing of beauty, and, as noted, it'll be free to download. Plus, another awesome implementation is planned via the FBReader, which, according to the Wikipedia, is catching on among Nokia 770 users. See http://only.mawhrin.net/fbreader/plans.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plucker. Thanks, David David Rothman | davidrothman@openreader.org | 703-370-6540 TeleRead: http://www.teleread.org/blog On 5/22/06, Marcello Perathoner <marcello@perathoner.de> wrote:
David H. Rothman wrote:
See the true details for yourself at http://www.dotreader.org.
It says:
www.dotreader.org
This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com
Did the .reader bubble already burst?
I'd love for Gutenberg itself to offer OpenReader format
We already offer most books in plucker. That's because they are open format, widely deployed and offer an open toolchain.
We serverd 89504 plucker books in May 2006.
We'll see about OpenReader once you'll have widely deployed your .reader and made available an open toolchain.
-- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org
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David H. Rothman wrote:
It's the best of all worlds: open source for programmers and a powerful free reader for users--and e-book standards similar to existing ones for publishers. Plus, dotReader can handle other XML/CSS-related formats as well.
If dotReader can handle XML/CSS-related formats, then many of the more recent PG books are already available for it, since they have been produced in xhtml. Most of the output from DP these days comes with an xhtml version. JulietS
Juliet wrote:
David H. Rothman wrote:
It's the best of all worlds: open source for programmers and a powerful free reader for users--and e-book standards similar to existing ones for publishers. Plus, dotReader can handle other XML/CSS-related formats as well.
If dotReader can handle XML/CSS-related formats, then many of the more recent PG books are already available for it, since they have been produced in xhtml. Most of the output from DP these days comes with an xhtml version.
The first vocabulary supported by OpenReader, called the "Basic Content Document 1.0" (BCD) is a structurally-oriented subset of XHTML 1.0, and compatible, as best as possible, with XHTML 2.0 currently being developed by W3C. It is also quite compatible with OEBPS 1.2. The draft BCD spec is located at: http://openreader.org/spec/bcd10.html We plan to create an "Extended Content Document" vocabulary by simply adding XLink support plus some OpenReader namespace tags to markup important things that XHTML does not natively support, such as page breaks and boundaries and numbering (e.g., for preserving where page breaks occurred in the original paper book), line breaks as occurred in the original (<br/> is not sufficient for this as I could talk about another time), other noteworthy "mile markers", inline indexing information (so OpenReader "readers" can assemble a people- authored index on the fly), etc., etc. Anyway. Feedback on BDD from those in DP who produce XHTML versions of books is more than welcome! Of course, looking for those willing to do a careful vetting of the BCD spec (and anyone who does becomes a contributor to be added to the list of contributors in the spec.) Thanks. Jon Noring OpenReader Consortium
On Mon, 22 May 2006, David H. Rothman wrote:
Actually that's http://www.dotreader.com , not .org --mea culpa--and if PG really cares about open source, then it should encourage strong open source efforts of the OSoft variety rather than just wait until they catch on.
However, Mr. Rothman does not take his own advice here, but only supports the particular open source projects that support him.
Here's a little two-man software house in Tacoma, Washington, gambling hundreds of thousands of dollars on an open-source reader that can do far more than Plucker, allowing blogs and forums to be embedded inside books.
Again, Mr. Rothman should take his own advice. . .if he were really doing his bit to suport this "little two-man software house in Tacoma" he would not be mentioning them as anonymous creatures sitting behind keyboards.
Plucker has many appreciative users, but dotReader/OpenReader will be of far greater importance to commercial publishers, who are already starting to show interest.
This is what everyone says about every project. Let's not confuse the press releases with reality. BTW, some people are totally amazed at how many Plucker files we send out. I got an independent comment on that earlier this week. However, to address Mr. Rothman's point that we should promote this one particular piece of open source programming, with or without the hundreds of thousands of dollars he mentioned, with or without programmers' names, Project Gutenberg is not in the business of establising businesses. However, on the other hand, if Mr. Rothman were to read the Newsletters, he would know that it is only one stop to putting in an announcement. "Better to light a single candle, than to curse the darkness."
In turn, that'll be wonderful for PG works and other public domain books. dotReader reader can work with many kinds of books while improving the user experience.
dotReader uses a turbocharged version of existing e-book standards that techies and publishers have thrashed aroundfor years.
And this means. . .. ?
It's the best of all worlds: open source for programmers and a powerful free reader for users--and e-book standards similar to existing ones for publishers. Plus, dotReader can handle other XML/CSS-related formats as well.
Similar? Will it be able to use these similar files?
We serverd 89504 plucker books in May 2006.
I think you'll do much better with OpenReader available as well. OSoft's e-reader for the format is a thing of beauty, and, as noted, it'll be free to download.
So is Adobe Acrobat Reader.
participants (4)
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David H. Rothman -
Jon Noring -
Juliet Sutherland -
Michael Hart