5 ms·
Oh for Christ's sake, someone pry Baldur off his cross again. > Blocking network assets is a setback for format adoption People are standing here telling him
by starkparker 3y ago
Oh for Christ's sake, someone pry Baldur off his cross again.
> Blocking network assets is a setback for format adoption
People are standing here telling him that _allowing_ network assets _is a setback for format adoption_ and he's just going to keep pounding this stupid, obnoxious drum of his until he runs everyone off.
> almost all of the problems described would be solved by getting OS vendors (Google, MS, Apple) to invest more money in EPUB
That's back-asswards. Google, MS, and Apple don't give a shit about EPUB, they never will, and it's arguable that we're better served with them not buying a seat at that table considering how poorly their "help" has helped web standards, as much of the rest of his dismissive thread helpfully notes.
If he wants money for EPUB standards he should shake the cup at IDPF members who rely on it, and particularly Amazon, to whom he quite vocally abdicated the publishing space 12 years ago.[1]
Barking at operating system companies is nonsense at best and how we wind up with another, even more avoidable situation where the space is held hostage by them at worst. At least Amazon can chuck some goodwill money at EPUB development while continuing to kick its ass up and down the market with MOBI.
(Aside from all this, his dismissals of the "clunky" reading system complaint, citing how EPUB has "too many divergences", only further proves to me how tunneled the vision is of the people involved. To hell with forking or improving EPUB, then, because it can't be improved if that's the attitude of the people most involved with or influential within it. What bloody point is there in the customizability of a format that _nobody_ can effectively build tools for or consume?)
1: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/amazon-wins/ https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/amazon-wins/, in which he also admits that he has no idea how to work with IDPF, which is a really great sign of how long things have been going this badly in this space
- sirsinsalot 3y agoI also don't want my e-reader phoning home (to publisher/author) read time and page turns because the EPUB loads a pixel.
- Someone 3y ago> Google, MS, and Apple don't give a shit about EPUB https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/epub/former-participants/ https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/epub/former-participants/ certainly shows Google and Apple participated in the working group. Apple also has a book store selling EPUB books and has EPUB readers for both MacOS and iOS. Google also has an app that handles EPUB.
- crabmusket 3y agoI really enjoyed this response, though I feel your points could have been made with a little less personal vitriol. Do you have history with Baldur? I don't ask because I think that would undermine your arguments, I'm just interested why you had such a strong reaction.
- mft_ 3y ago> > Blocking network assets is a setback for format adoption > People are standing here telling him that _allowing_ network assets _is a setback for format adoption_ and he's just going to keep pounding this stupid, obnoxious drum of his until he runs everyone off. I don't know the background that you're frustrated about, but I'd suggest that the answer might be: 'it depends' - and it depends on the intended purpose of the format in question. PDF is self-contained, and can be read (mostly) reliably on almost any device with the right software; PDFs having to have internet access to be read or opened would be a bad thing; further, the same goes for most formats - including EPUB (as you say) and audio files, picture files, etc.
- chasil 3y ago> PDF is self-contained, and can be read (mostly) reliably on almost any device with the right software Article: "A PDF is a single file that contains all the images, fonts, and other data needed to render it." This is only true if you are using PDF/A, or have explicitly bundled all of your fonts in some version of the PDF standard. Otherwise, 14 total typefaces must be rendered by the viewer. These 14 are: Times (in regular, italic, bold, and bold italic), Courier (in regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique), Helvetica (in regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique), Symbol, and Zapf Dingbats. The 14 standard typefaces can vary between viewers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF#Text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF#Text "...the base fourteen fonts... or suitable substitute fonts with the same metrics, should be available in most PDF readers, but they are not guaranteed to be available in the reader, and may only display correctly if the system has them installed." Depending upon what the viewer bundles, PDFs using these 14 might not render as expected. Below is a deeper discussion from the wiki: https://web.archive.org/web/20110718231502/http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/pdf2k/03e/merz_fontaquarium.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20110718231502/http://www.planet...
- dsr_ 3y agoIt would be quite nice if Firefox opened EPUBs properly instead of requiring the just-good-enough EPUBreader add-on. I'd value that a lot more than Pocket (which I always turn off).
- the_lucifer 3y agoI will go so far after argue that Apple is only one of the major vendors actually adopting EPUB books.
- int_19h 3y agoMS is quietly implementing .epub support in Edge. It's already there behind a feature flag in preview builds.