[LMB] AKICOTL: eReaders vs Netbooks/Notebooks/minilappies

[Francis Turner]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Caroline Wong <caroline at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:52 AM, Francis Turner
> <francis.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> That's not true FBReader (and calibre) work great for non DRMed ebooks
>> on linux. There are also numerous PDF viewers. Where things go wrong
>> for linux users is on the DRM front, however linux users also have a
>> lot of the basics required to run most DRM removal tools so the issue
>> is somewhat moot.
>>
> This will be an extremely unpopular statement but it is illegal to
> remove DRM in North America and the EU. I know, I know, I can just
> hear the boos and hisses. Anyway, you are right. There are hacks
> around almost anything. I have a Kindle and I don't live in the US or
> have a US credit card :)

While removal of DRM is illegal I think it is worth pointing out that
the %age of books I have bought with DRM is about 1% - basically 3 TSK
books and Moon's Vatta series. I have somewhere between 700 and 1000
books all told. The majority from Baen, a dozen of multiformat
fictionwise and a few others from different places as well as a bunch
of free stuff from Gutenberg etc.

> In the ereading world, it's still mostly about content and price. For
> those who want to read new releases, textbooks or other copyrighted
> material, then you must choose the ereader that can read the books
> that you want.
Right. For me requirement is BAen SF which is widely available in
multiple formats so this is not an issue. I've also become quite good
at doing mobipocket creation for those works that don't have anything
better

> Also, the tools that remove DRM may also remove some
> formatting or the process of converting one type to another may change
> the formatting. When I think of LMB's use of italics, I think that's a
> big issue.

In my experience the removal of DRM does not effect the layout. Format
conversion may do - though it frequently doesn't. The format that
seems to be worst for getting things from is PDF - most automated text
extractors from PDF discard all the formatting in the process which is
a major PITA.


-- 
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  Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.