Amazon Expands Kindle To the PC

An anonymous reader writes "Windows users will be able to use a new Kindle Books application to purchase, download and read e-book titles from Amazon's Kindle Store service. The PC application will be offered as a free download and will support Windows 7, Vista and XP systems. The news comes as Amazon is suddenly finding itself with a fresh crop of competitors in the e-book reader market. Earlier this week hardware vendor Spring Design entered the market with its Alex device, while publisher/retailer Barnes and Noble presented an even more serious challenge to Kindle when it unveiled its Nook reader device." Worth noting, if you're in the market for any such device: the base Kindle's price is now down to $259.

Comments

Current /. Poll

[LoudMusic]

I find this post interesting considering the current slashdot poll is about linear footage of shelved books in your home.

http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1871&aid=-1

And another article discussing the loss of available "internet"

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/10/24/2347248/What-If-They-Turned-Off-the-Internet?art_pos=11

Re:Current /. Poll

[Runaway1956]

You mean there is a LEGITIMATE way to get books? Interesting. I never got past torrents, newsgroups, and other means of P2P. Hell, I didn't realize they actually SOLD ebooks! I might try it, some day, maybe. If the P2P networks ever run out of books, I KNOW I will!

I'll take the B&N Android reader instead

[symbolset]

Don't care for the DRM. I could really use a book reader though, and the Android version once liberated may have interesting other applications.

Re:I'll take the B&N Android reader instead

[MrBigInThePants]

I totally agree. I don't know what the love affair with amazon is (well, maybe advertising revenue) but I would suggest that they have shown on several counts that their reader is a BIG risk and that other readers are far better. Triply so if you do not live in the US.

1984 being recalled?
DRM?
Not supporting other ebook types so you can purchase where you want?
Charging a 40% premium in the UK?

Yeah. You can keep your reader amazon, I am just not that stupid. Even Sony is coming to the table with something better and they INVENTED this game. :)

Re:I'll take the B&N Android reader instead

[fooslacker]

I actually love my Kindle but it's about the device itself. I would much prefer one that was actually open. I am currently waiting to lay hands on a nook to see if it's a viable replacement but from everything I've read so far it is lacking in the actual reading experience and battery departments. My hope is that the Nook and competitors actually force Amazon into a more open position but I may be dreaming.

Re:I'll take the B&N Android reader instead

[boilednut]

Below are some pros/cons of Nook relative to Kindle.
Note: I am a very pleased Kindle owner, and I make no pretense of being completely unbiased.

Pros

• Android OS.
• Color Touch Display.
• Native support for more eBook formats -- including PDF.
• LendMe feature.
• Wi-Fi support.
• Memory expansion to 16GB with MicroSD card.

Caveats: The LendMe feature will only allow a book to be lent one time only -- for at most two weeks; and, according to some souces (http://reviews.cnet.com/e-book-readers/barnes-noble-nook/4505-3508_7-33786175.html), the Wi-Fi connection will only be enabled at the Barnes & Nobles stores.

Cons

• No Text-to-Speech feature.
• No web browser.
• Substantially reduced battery life.

Re:I'll take the B&N Android reader instead

[xtracto]

1984 being recalled?
DRM?
Not supporting other ebook types so you can purchase where you want?
Charging a 40% premium in the UK?

Shit, even the RIAA has learned that DRM is a no-no!

Amazon surely is behind the times...

Me? I am waiting between 1 and 2 years for the color screens to be affordable, or bigger screens .

Mainly, I will wait until a Chinese company produces a "barebones" SD-card pdf-ebook reader (no wifi, no 3G) which allows me to read ebooks and is cheap.

 

MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[rinoid]

Now you can use your DRM-laden "books" from Amazon on your Windows computer!

Why do so many fawn over Kindle and other like devices with DRM in text, IN TEXT!@, after spending years railing (often against the wrong targets) against DRM in music?

-- maybe this will mean a more useful crack for said DRM --

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[causality]

Now you can use your DRM-laden "books" from Amazon on your Windows computer!

Why do so many fawn over Kindle and other like devices with DRM in text, IN TEXT!@, after spending years railing (often against the wrong targets) against DRM in music?

-- maybe this will mean a more useful crack for said DRM --

No shit. To anyone in marketing who might be reading this, I'll fill you in. How to make sure I never, ever buy your product for any reason:

• Use any sort of DRM scheme.
• Unilaterally and remotely exercise control over the hardware that I have paid for, such as when the book 1984 was forcibly removed from Kindles after its purchase in order to shift some of the cost of the publisher's mistakes onto the end-users.
• Use a proprietary or encumbered file format when a widely-supported standard file format is available.
• Attempt to track/data-mine my activities so you can send me unsolicited advertisements for items I will make it a point to never buy if you somehow manage to successfully send me the unsolicited advertisements.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[maxume]

Part of it is that there is a rather wide demographic (meaning that it probably isn't the same people doing it).

Another part of it is that many sane people are not offended by hardware the supports DRM, even though they never purchase media encumbered by said DRM.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Now if only there was a way to open the eyes of the masses who don't consider any of the above. This goes beyond saying "they don't care" -- it simply never occurs to ask the question, or think about it. at all.

If we can find an effective way to do that, then DRM'd sales will take a hit. Until then... people will buy it out of ignorance.

If I weren't aware of the DRM, and ebook prices were cheaper than paperback equivs, I'd buy a kindle - it's an impressive-looking device that -- by all reports -- works well at what it's designed for. For most people, that's all that matters.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Amarok.Org]

There's another option entirely - we know the limitations and are OK with it.

I own a Kindle, and was well aware of the DRM restrictions before I bought it. Sure, there are lots of people who have plenty of perfectly legitimate gripes about the DRM, and it *will* restrict them from doing things that they want to do. So they don't purchase it... fine. No problem.

I like the Kindle, and the DRM doesn't prevent me from doing anything I want to do. I wanted an easy way to buy and carry books with me when I travel, and the Kindle does that for me. I don't tend to re-read books when I'm done with them, so if the Kindle service suddenly died, I wouldn't be too broken up about it. Sure there was the initial investment in the reader - but at least for me, the cost was reasonably trivial. I mean, I spend more on bar tabs in a month than I did on the Kindle. The fact that the books I purchase and read are a bit cheaper in electronic version, I've probably saved 25% of the cost of the reader in the few months I've owned it. After a year, it's a break even proposition if you're only looking at the total costs. But for that initial investment, I got the convenience of the reader and the opportunity to read a whole lot more than I would have otherwise. Win-win, in my book.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[fafaforza]

I don't see what the big deal with DRM is, and why people get so passionate about it. You'll spend $12 to go see a movie in a sticky theater and obnoxious people. You won't get to save a copy of said movie, and you'll be fine with it.

But paying $10 for a book that will likely provide you with hours more entertainment than the movie, with some possibility that in 30 years Amazon won't exist and your books might not be usable, somehow seems like a crime.

What does everyone suggest as a replacement for DRM? Do you honestly believe that people can be trusted on an "honor system" to purchase books honestly when they could download them for free in seconds? If there was a place to download all the latest releases, nicely formatted, in the correct format and all, I know that I'd probably download them for free more often than pay.

Imagine if you were a writer, trying to make a living at it, as hard as it is already, and you had no control over what you created. It wouldn't sit well with you either.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[causality]

There's another option entirely - we know the limitations and are OK with it.

I own a Kindle, and was well aware of the DRM restrictions before I bought it. Sure, there are lots of people who have plenty of perfectly legitimate gripes about the DRM, and it *will* restrict them from doing things that they want to do. So they don't purchase it... fine. No problem.

I like the Kindle, and the DRM doesn't prevent me from doing anything I want to do. I wanted an easy way to buy and carry books with me when I travel, and the Kindle does that for me. I don't tend to re-read books when I'm done with them, so if the Kindle service suddenly died, I wouldn't be too broken up about it. Sure there was the initial investment in the reader - but at least for me, the cost was reasonably trivial. I mean, I spend more on bar tabs in a month than I did on the Kindle. The fact that the books I purchase and read are a bit cheaper in electronic version, I've probably saved 25% of the cost of the reader in the few months I've owned it. After a year, it's a break even proposition if you're only looking at the total costs. But for that initial investment, I got the convenience of the reader and the opportunity to read a whole lot more than I would have otherwise. Win-win, in my book.

I just want DRM to die. It's a failed concept, and like all failed concepts it deserves to die. It's also a particularly asinine one, based on the automatic assumption that the person who is buying from you wants to infringe your copyrights even though that person has given no such indication. Only sociopathic assholes celebrate the idea of "guilty until proven innocent," and that's even if their customers are willing to put up with it.

I don't want my dollars to support a DRM scheme even if that DRM scheme is perfect in every way and never interferes with anything I could ever want to do with the device. There are both abstract and pragmatic reasons for that. I thought I'd focus on the pragmatic reasons since most people seem unable to care about much else. In a way, the reasoning here is similar to why you don't give broad, sweeping, unnecessary powers to a government and then complain when they are abused. The mild/agreeable DRM schemes are like the nicer politicians who probably won't abuse the power. There is no guarantee that their successors will be so benevolent.

So yes, Amazon might be using an agreeable DRM scheme right now. They do, after all, want to establish marketshare and get this to catch on, and right now Kindles are far from ubiquitous. It's in their interests to play nice right now. They have enough business sense to understand that pissing off their (relatively) early adopters will doom this product. However, they have not signed any written agreements stating that they will perpetually be this way into the future. In fact, it's a safe assumption that they reserve the right to change their system or its software at any time, and probably without notice (this is standard fare for commercial EULAs). Strictly in terms of business decisions, the bigger and more widespread the Kindle becomes, the more tempting it will be for them to add restrictions. This is not in my interests.

Additionally, this company has already demonstrated with the 1984 deal that they have no qualms about allowing a publisher's mistake to become the customer's problem. I'm a philosopher, so I did not actually need to see a demonstration; just that they had the technical and legal ability to do this was enough for me, for that guarantees it was only a matter of time. In other words, you don't carefully design technical (remote control) and legal (EULAs/agreements) powers like that for the hell of it. You do it because you intend to use them. This is not in my interests either.

I'll say this much about my abstract reasons: my freedom and autonomy are extremely precious to me. They are certainly more precious to me than saving a few bucks. I won't tra

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Nyeerrmm]

As someone who never bought a DRM-laden piece of music, but buys plenty of stuff for my Kindle (but was never one to rant much about it), the reason is simply one of practicality.

I'm in grad school, have a small room, move a lot, and tend to fulfill some of those 'digital nomad' stereotypes, so the benefits of e-books are pretty strong for me -- however, there is no way to purchase DRM-free e-books without extremely limiting my choices. I figure that by purchasing and using the device, as its useful for me and I feel informed what the DRM implies, I can help to show that there is a market, and that more competition will force more openness, as it did in the music industry.

Music had two critical differences to me. One was that I could purchase a CD and rip it with little effort (I still prefer to purchase music by album, so single-serve songs meant little to me) -- this made it easy to get most of the benefits without the DRM (plus ripping to FLAC). The second is repeatability and cost/length: buying a new copy of an album every year just to relisten to is absurd, while if I were to decide to reread a book 5 years from now, it doesn't seem as ridiculous to rebuy it, thus making the DRM-associated risk less.

That said, first DRM-free e-book store that appears with a comparable selection, I'll jump to immediately, just as I started using the Amazon MP3 store as soon as it appeared.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Nyeerrmm]

Thats a valid view, but voting with your wallet has one big flaw that I see. I don't think the failure of the Kindle would have told publishers that DRM for e-books is a loser -- it would have told them that e-books are losers. And like the poster you're responding to, I find e-books very convenient.

Personally, I'm hoping that competition and publisher discomfort with a dominant distributor will eventually bring an end to DRM here, just as it did for digital music.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[causality]

What does everyone suggest as a replacement for DRM? Do you honestly believe that people can be trusted on an "honor system" to purchase books honestly when they could download them for free in seconds? If there was a place to download all the latest releases, nicely formatted, in the correct format and all, I know that I'd probably download them for free more often than pay.

If DRM actually stopped piracy then you'd have a point. It doesn't. The pirates just see it as a challenge, something they can use to prove their "eliteness" by breaking the DRM scheme. The result is that paying customers bear any inconvenience caused by DRM while people who pirate do not. This has proven to be the case with music, movies, and video games. There is absolutely no reason to think e-books will be different (if anything they are easier to pirate as they are smaller than movies and games). The consistent, predictable creation of situations where the pirate has a better, more usable, less restricted product than the paying customer should tell you something about the effectiveness of DRM.

Imagine if you were a writer, trying to make a living at it, as hard as it is already, and you had no control over what you created. It wouldn't sit well with you either.

While I appreciate the emotional appeal, the assumption of what I would do in a hypothetical situation, and the assumption that all writers unanimously feel the same way about this topic, this isn't valid reasoning.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[causality]

Thats a valid view, but voting with your wallet has one big flaw that I see. I don't think the failure of the Kindle would have told publishers that DRM for e-books is a loser -- it would have told them that e-books are losers. And like the poster you're responding to, I find e-books very convenient.

If they did a little market research they would learn the reason for any wallet-voting, though I acknowledge that for political reasons there may be little incentive for them to do so. For that reason, perhaps it should be accompanied by some kind of form letter advising them of why the product was not purchased.

I agree that e-books are extremely convenient. I just don't want that convenience to be the bait at the end of a hook to cause the acceptance of something that is profoundly anti-customer and really needs to go the way of the dinosaur.

Personally, I'm hoping that competition and publisher discomfort with a dominant distributor will eventually bring an end to DRM here, just as it did for digital music.

Now that's a really good argument. Not only is it abundantly plausible, it might end up being the best way to deal with this issue particularly in the absence of conscientious customers. I also wish that the posters in this thread who assume that no DRM will destroy the e-book industry would take a hard look at the music industry as you have done.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[causality]

I do want to add one more thing about DRM. Beware politician's logic, which goes "we must do something. This is something, so it must be done!"

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Totenglocke]

You'll spend $12 to go see a movie in a sticky theater and obnoxious people. You won't get to save a copy of said movie, and you'll be fine with it. But paying $10 for a book that will likely provide you with hours more entertainment than the movie, with some possibility that in 30 years Amazon won't exist and your books might not be usable, somehow seems like a crime.

That's because you go to the movie paying to see it one time on the big screen with the awesome sound system AND you pay to see it when it's brand new. That's why after it's been out for awhile it goes to the cheap theaters that don't charge as much - because it's not new anymore.

When you buy a book / movie / game, as long as you take care of it, it should last forever. If a company has the ability to revoke your ability to use the product you purchased at any time (whether through bankruptcy or because they decide to no longer support it), then you do not own it and are merely renting it......and as anyone with even the smallest amount of financial intelligence can tell you, renting is throwing your money down the drain (yes, sometimes it's a necessary evil to rent an apartment until you can afford a house). I buy things that are made to last, which is why I do no buy anything that can be taken away from me randomly and for no reason.

I would LOVE to buy an e-book reader, but there's a few things holding me back:1) DRM 2) the fact that the e-book costs more than the paperback 3) that there's no way for me to pay a small fee and input the ISBN number from books I already own to get e-book version of them - if I want to read them on the reader, I'd have to buy them new at the inflated price of the e-book 4) I want to read news papers on it (particularly the WSJ), but so far Amazon is the only one I know of who offers this AND it does not include charts / graphs with the newspaper (which is rather essential to certain parts of the WSJ).

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[sopssa]

DRM isn't there to stop piracy completely. It's there to make it much-too-work for the ordinary user, so they would rather buy the real product than waste time to try to get it to work.

Slashdot is full of technically-capable people so it's not surprise DRM stuff always comes up here, but in the "real world" nobody really cares that much about the underlying technology or philosophy. It still works like they would except it to.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[causality]

DRM isn't there to stop piracy completely. It's there to make it much-too-work for the ordinary user, so they would rather buy the real product than waste time to try to get it to work.

Slashdot is full of technically-capable people so it's not surprise DRM stuff always comes up here, but in the "real world" nobody really cares that much about the underlying technology or philosophy. It still works like they would except it to.

I don't believe you have thought this through, so I'll explain why that doesn't work.

The "too much work" only needs to be done once, by the pirates. They have plenty of motivation to do this, not the least of which is that their status in that community is based on what they can crack and how quickly they can crack it. Then infinite perfect copies of the cracked/DRM-free item can easily be distributed worldwide. The ordinary user needs no more work or expertise than what is necessary to run a BitTorrent client, or failing that, all they need to do is ask for a copy from a friend who does know how to run a BitTorrent client.

Some of the reasons given for DRM look good on paper. However, none of the reasons given for DRM stand up to examination under commonly observed real-world conditions.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[couchslug]

"You'll spend $12 to go see a movie in a sticky theater and obnoxious people. "

I don't.
I haven't been to a movie in a theater since the 1980s and don't miss sharing space with a waterfall of loud, annoying retards. That shit is why home entertainment systems were invented.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[retchdog]

First, I think the anti-DRM people probably go to the cinema less often than "normals".

Also, DRM seems more unfair on a gut level. Why can't you take the cinema home with you? Well, it's a huge screen. Duh. Why does the book go away after a while? Because it's rigged to die.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[sopssa]

I know that, but for ordinary men/women it still means knowing a lot about it, going to some "shady" websites and doing some tricks to get it to work (and realizing it's illegal). That would be different if every person could just copy and share things like they normally do, without any tricks.

Technically-capable and most of young people of course know the ways around things and probably dont even care that it's not exactly legal. But DRM stops the other people from doing such.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[roguetrick]

If you ask me, DRM isn't even there to prevent the torrent style book piracy. Its to prevent the rampant sharing amongst friends. Makes the argument quite different in the end. You may bring forward the idea that you would lend the book to a friend in the first place. But if you could just copy it over, your book recommendation that may lead to a few sales would instead turn into a whole group of people sharing off of one purchase.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[MichaelSmith]

Its very simple. we can choose either to have DRM, or to retain control of our infromation. We can't have both and the middle ground between the two is shrinking as software becomes more crucial to different areas of commerce.

See The Right to Read by RMS.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[fafaforza]

But so far, you can still buy a printed book and keep it for ever. If you look at it from a publisher's point of view, if they can't comfortably release a book as a computer file without it easily being copied and shared, then they simply won't pursue the technology, and everyone will suffer because the portable reader will lose its usefulness.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[fafaforza]

Agreed. Most people can't be bothered to figure out the difference between BBeB/ePub/etc, let alone decrypting books or downloading them from trackers.

If it were as simple as right clicking on a file and selecting "Email to", ebook piracy would be more prevalent.

If you don't agree with DRM, buy printed books, or read out of copyright classics, of which there are thousands.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[fafaforza]

There are plenty of reasons for renting (or leasing) which may include not wanting to live in the same place for a long time. Every time you buy or sell a home, you're looking at fairly significant fees, taxes, etc. Even if you own a house outright, you're still subject to various taxes, so you could still lose your property.

Having a company like Amazon or Sony go bankrupt is somewhat far fetched. But even if something like that happened, there are enough users of the service that the outrage created would have forced the company to rectify the situation by allowing people to keep their purchased books. My opinion of course. You have the right to be completely untrusting, I have the right to see the middle of the road.

And even if Sony goes belly up and the books I bought cease to exist, so what? I have plenty of real books that I tried to get rid of. Between eBaying them, and trying (unsuccessfully) to give them away to a local library, I'll take my ephemeral digital bits gladly.

By the way, a program called "calibre" allows you to download the WSJ (and other news sources, like Engadget, Ars, etc, and you can write your own recipes for any RSS based site). All images, charts, etc. Though it isn't perfect: you will inevitably see yesterday's article in today's download since it simply downloads from the RSS feed, but that is more of a problem with the paper itself for not compiling a daily eBook file for paid users to download.

As far as having eBooks of books you bought, of course you'd have to prove somehow that you actually own the book, with a receipt. Something like this might eventually happen. eBooks are still in their infancy.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[MichaelSmith]

But so far, you can still buy a printed book and keep it for ever. If you look at it from a publisher's point of view, if they can't comfortably release a book as a computer file without it easily being copied and shared, then they simply won't pursue the technology, and everyone will suffer because the portable reader will lose its usefulness.

Lots of stuff gets sold as "computer files" without significant technical restrictions on copying and sharing. CDs for example.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Anonymous Coward]

Such an appropriate nickname, too.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[GryMor]

The existence of DRM on the content is dictated by the publishers, not the hardware. If you want to vote with your wallet, you are going to have to do it by chosing to only buy e-books that don't have DRM (say, from Baen)

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Imsdal]

The "too much work" only needs to be done once, by the pirates.

Patently untrue. The Wii, for instance, is hacked, and you all can take it from good authority (namely me) that it's quite possible to download pirated stuff through your favorite torrent site. Yet I don't think anyone else of the 20+ people I know IRL who have a Wii are using homebrew. It's still too complicated, and if you think it isn't, you have lost contact with reality.

For the Wii, the effort Nintendo has put into DRM and making copying difficult has paid off. You may all wish this isn't true, but wishing it's false doesn't make it so. Similarly, suggesting that ebooks with no DRM at all would lead to no more illegal sharing is just plain wrong.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Imsdal]

and as anyone with even the smallest amount of financial intelligence can tell you, renting is throwing your money down the drain

Huh? Are you kidding? Do you buy a car when you go on vacation or do you rent it? (But I get a feeling you think that going on vacation is a waste of money in the first place.)

I see no problems with "renting" books, just as long as you know that's what you are doing. I have read about 1000 books in my life. Number of books I have read twice: 1. Number of books I enjoyed rereading: 0. This may be extreme, but I really doubt that most people reread more than 10% of all the books they buy. Renting them should be perfectly fine. After all, more movies are rented than bought.

2) the fact that the e-book costs more than the paperback (...) 4) I want to read news papers on it (particularly the WSJ), but so far Amazon is the only one I know of who offers this AND it does not include charts / graphs with the newspaper (which is rather essential to certain parts of the WSJ).

Agreed on both counts, but do note that this is as of today a problem in Europe, not in the US. Note to Amazon: I'm in Europe. I will buy a Kindle when you solve these two issues, and reenable the browser.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Dare nMc]

$$$$
I think Amazons use of DRM will help/was designed to break the overhead, where as Apples, and Sonys is clearly to prop up the failed models longer.
Amazon has a reasonable, we'll publish your book directly for a flat percentage, no matter what price you want ($.99 - $200) Very easy, very cost affective.
Granted Apple kinda sorta, stepped into this, but never gave the same efforts to independents. And never for the kinda price/format flexibility that amazon is going for with their Digital Text Platform
(also it doesn't hurt that amazons DRM is fairly easy to crack.)

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[rinoid]

Uhm... a little flawed IMO. Apple is not a music publisher, Sony is a music publisher. Apple was forced into DRM to sell product, Sony created its own DRM. I do, I do wish Apple would make a GarageBand/LogicPro --> iTunes Store for Indie artists. Wonder if there is more deal with the devil in the reasons they do not? Amazon was also probably forced into DRM. Even the famed 1984 removal by Amazon was at the behest of the publisher. This was my original intent, to point out that anti-DRM ranting against music downloads was frequently misplaced toward the likes of Apple or other also-rans, and the real target, the publishers, was lost. I agree about the convenience factor. If it is convenient enough people do not care.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[HAKdragon]

..don't miss sharing space with a waterfall of loud, annoying retards.

Yet, you come to slashdot...

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Dog-Cow]

Amazon did actually have qualms about allowing a publisher's mistake to become the customer's problem. Yes, their initial reaction was poor, but they did actually replace every copy that they had removed. That doesn't sound "qualmless" [sic] to me.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Meski]

Now you can use your DRM-laden "books" from Amazon on your Windows computer!

Why do so many fawn over Kindle and other like devices with DRM in text, IN TEXT!@, after spending years railing (often against the wrong targets) against DRM in music?

-- maybe this will mean a more useful crack for said DRM --

No shit. To anyone in marketing who might be reading this, I'll fill you in. How to make sure I never, ever buy your product for any reason:

• Use any sort of DRM scheme.

What about DRM that used open source, rather than rely on security by obscurity and the DMCA to enforce that? Part of what I really dislike about it is the inability to move a book from device A running Windows, to device B running Android. If the DRM code was open, this wouldn't be an issue. My private key, aka licence code would *still* be mine, whatever the device.

Re:MMmmmm... my head will explode.

[Meski]

I'd disagree that it is an agreeable DRM. It locks you to a device, and a vendor. Amazon probably like that a lot.

Shame about the kindle

[Arancaytar]

Worth noting, if you're in the market for any such device: the base Kindle's price is now down to $259.

If it had internet access like it apparently does in the states, I'd seriously consider it. As it is, a netbook will ultimately be the better investment.

Re:Shame about the kindle

[sopssa]

Or Courier. By the look of it, it could be great, and it's not just for ebook reading but more general tablet pc.

Re:Shame about the kindle

[rolfwind]

There is an international version with 3g connectivity:
http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Reading-Display-International-Generation/dp/B0015T963C

But believe me, I owned a kindle 2 roughly six months ago - there is no overlap with a netbook yet. Other than wikipedia (where the 6" screen sucked worse than an iPhone, now, I can't speak for the DX with a 9.7" screen size), you don't want to begin to browse with this, it is painful, even on wifi. The browser is primitive and nearly useless.

It can purchase and read books. That is it for the core competencies. I'm not saying this is bad, it's great if that is what you need it for. But don't buy it for the browser.

Re:Shame about the kindle

[fafaforza]

So which netbook fits in the back pocket of a pair of jeans, weights nothing, and lasts for weeks between charges?

Re:Shame about the kindle

[travbrad]

A valid point, but for me a netbook is still an improvement over regular books. They are generally about the same/size weight as an average book, but can hold thousands of books. So if you are carrying one book you sort of "break even", but multiple books are a lot easier to carry around, although admittedly not as easy as an ebook reader.

The battery life is nice, but I am never away from electricity long enough for that to be an issue (you can get 10 hours battery life if you use it as an ebook reader). I could see it being useful for someone who travels a lot though.

Re:Shame about the kindle

[travbrad]

Your "obsolete" CPU will still be many times faster than anything in an ebook reader. Many netbooks are capable of running Windows 7, which I doubt Microsoft will drop security support for anytime soon (it's been out less than a week..). You could also go with a nice compact linux distro as well.

I think the hardware (in both the netbooks and the ebook readers) is likely to fail long before security on an aging OS becomes an issue.

Cross platform?

[wiredlogic]

Would it have killed them to use a cross platform library and provide support for OS X and Linux as well? It's not like this is a legacy app or anything.

Re:Cross platform?

[longhunt]

I bet they have had something like this in-house since the beginning. They probably just cleaned up the interface so they could offer it to the public. Hopefully we can use Wine, or something.

Re:Cross platform?

[RanCossack]

I bet they have had something like this in-house since the beginning. They probably just cleaned up the interface so they could offer it to the public. Hopefully we can use Wine, or something.

I had the same thought -- but it does seem a bit ludicrous, doesn't it? I mean, we *know* they have a Linux program that can read the kindle format, and have since the beginning... because they shipped it on the Kindle.

Re:Cross platform?

[sopssa]

It also happens because of Open Source/Linux/GPL community. Just see the comments on slashdot when Spotify decided to be nice for the Linux guys and released a closed-source library for them to use develop their own Linux clients. But since it was closed source (for various reasons not even dependable of Spotify), everyone just bitched and said how worthless it is and told them to fuck off.

Yeah, thats the way to get more support for Linux.

Re:Cross platform?

[rssrss]

Yes, the thing they are most worried about is Apple. They don't want an opening to that world.

link to Amazon's page

[bigbigbison]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000426311 Not much there but there is an official mention of it unlike the article slashdot links to

PDF's?

[TDyl]

Why can't PC users just have access to PDF's? We already have a damn good reader/creator (Foxit) that has a much smaller footprint than any Adobe product.

Re:PDF's?

[sopssa]

Does it use some Adobe product? It's Amazon, not Adobe.

Re:PDF's?

[maxume]

PDF is an awful ebook format (a big problem is that it specifies exact layout, meaning that users who choose to use a large font will have to deal with scrolling each page instead of flipping pages or scrolling a river, and so forth).

Re:PDF's?

[TDyl]

Yes, I am aware of that, but PDF's are cross-platform and wouldn't need extra software (or hardware) to read; they can also be password locked which could enable a form of DRM - as a customer orders a PDF the file is created with a password unlock unique to him/her: I know that may open up just sharing the unlocked PDF online but that would be a problem that most industries face as they offer digital content.

Re:PDF's?

[longhunt]

At work I get all of my project manuals and specification manuals in .pdf. Its the most miserable format ever for book-length documents. I hate trying to hunt through an 800 page manual one screen at a time to find the one paragraph I need that no one bothered to bookmark.

Re:PDF's?

[TDyl]

Um, how hard is it to set your zoom level and use a wheel-mouse or similar to move from top to bottom of a page and from page to page? Those with sight related-problems already have screen readers and other forms of software of that ilk. Disclaimer: I have both eyes that still work, I appreciate the PDF format and the thought of paying hundreds for an e-book reader is an anathema to me - I'd much rather have the books themselves, but if Captain Beatty is going to burn all my books then I guess I will have no choice.

Re:PDF's?

[fafaforza]

There's already a secure PDF format which publishers could use. Why you'd want to read a book on an LCD or CRT I have no idea, though.

Re:PDF's?

[maxume]

It isn't hard at all. But it is easier and smoother and nicer to use an actual ebook format that reflows nicely (try reading the same material in a decently formatted pdf and in a decently formatted MS Reader book and you will understand what I am talking about).

Re:PDF's?

[TDyl]

It was to do with the subject of TFA whereby amazon will be making their products available to PC-using readers.

Re:PDF's?

[TDyl]

I shall have to try if I can find someone to lend me an e-book reader before I would even consider buying one.

Re:PDF's?

[maxume]

You can download MS Reader (for Windows) for free. I'm not talking about the comparison just on physical devices, I'm talking about on a computer screen.

Re:PDF's?

[causality]

There's already a secure PDF format which publishers could use. Why you'd want to read a book on an LCD or CRT I have no idea, though.

Real question: what's so terrible about a good LCD screen? I frequently hear people complain about the idea of reading books on an LCD screen, yet I have done this myself and didn't think it was bad at all.

The CRTs I think I can understand. I'm one of those people who can detect the flicker even at reasonably high refresh rates, so they will eventually tire my eyes if I don't make it a point to look away from the screen from time to time. Even at the very best refresh rates, the scanned CRT is not regarded by the eyes as a solid image like a wall or a sheet of paper and they have to do a little extra work to give the illusion of a steady image.

I believe LCDs don't have this problem because they can independently and simultaneously control each pixel, and lighting one pixel doesn't cause the previous one to stop being lit so there is no concept of continuously scanning lines. However, I make no claims of having any expertise in this area, so please correct me if I am wrong about that.

Re:PDF's?

[Overzeetop]

Ignoring the AC sibling posts, I would tend to agree. One of the biggest failures of the typical PDF is that there are no thumbnail views of the pages - you have to render every single page, every time you shift it. So if you happen to view the pages in continuous format you get to render two pages, and if your monitor is big enough to see side by sid eand continuous, it's four. Try and get a thumbnail view in a side pane and you have to sit around while it re-renders the whole book.

I deal with large PDF sets of architectural prints which have a bazillion vectors and take forever to render, even on decent machines. A conversion from vector to 400dpi 1bit and back to pdf can cut the file size by 50% or more. Talk about painful.

That said, it's not too bad if you've got a good way to search, bookmark, and comment. I'd like it if you could render as fast as you could flip through a normal book.

Re:PDF's?

[sopssa]

I dont really have a problem reading from LCD screen, I kind of prefer it to normal paper actually. I think the parent meant sitting on a computer and reading from that, which isn't really as comfortable as laying in a bed or sofa. Yeah I do sit on computer pretty much all the day anyway, but it's not nice to concentrate on a book that way. Laptop either doesn't have the same comfort, even if you can take it with you to bed.

Personally I'm waiting for Courier Tablet, which seems just perfect for reading ebooks in bed (with the added ability to do other computer stuff too)

Re:PDF's?

[ErikZ]

A good LCD screen doesn't stand up to sunlight and uses too much power.

Re:PDF's?

[AndersOSU]

I don't have a huge problem with reading from LCDs, but it is easier on the eyes to use reflected light than back light.

Will it disable the

[future assassin]

print screen button or copy and paste?

And the race begins

[AuMatar]

Major geek cred for the first person to write a script that automatically pages through the book and takes a screenshot of each page, crops out the non-text, and runs OCR on it. No reason to even bother removing the DRM on this one.

Re:And the race begins

[AeneaTech]

Ehh, the Kindle's AZW format is a modified Mobipocket format of which the DRM can be removed by easier methods than you describe! I even have bought Kindle ebooks without owning a Kindle and read them on my iLiad with the DRM removed ofcourse :D

Do a google search for: mobipocket decoder

So, the major geek cred must go to the person who wrote that I suppose ;)

Why Windows XP?

[mysidia]

As a MacOS and Linux user, I feel really left out put off by this move, why support only Vista and XP...?

Re:Why Windows XP?

[hey]

Could it be market share?

Re:Why Windows XP?

[Nom du Keyboard]

As a MacOS and Linux user, I feel really left out put off by this move, why support only Vista and XP...?

If you're a Mac user then you're supposed to already be using the free Kindle reader on your iPhone/iTouch.

What??? You don't have one of those??? Don't you know that you are supposed to own at least one of every toy that Steve Jobs sells. Just what kind of Mac user are you anyway???

Re:Why Windows XP?

[swanzilla]

What??? You don't have one of those??? Don't you know that you are supposed to own at least one of every toy* that Steve Jobs sells. Just what kind of Mac user are you anyway???

* Apple TV excluded.

Re:Why Windows XP?

[mysidia]

Windows Vista has only 20% market share. Windows XP is an old and obsoleted OS no longer supported by its manufacturer.

And other OSes have significant market share as well..

Re:Why Windows XP?

[sopssa]

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8

  Windows 92.77%
    Mac 5.12%
    Linux 0.95%

And you dont really need to count XP, Vista and Win7 as different versions, WinAPI is pretty much the same in all (if you dont count the extra features in Vista/Win7 ones, but you dont need to use those)

Re:Why Windows XP?

[n0dna]

Extended Support period until April 8, 2014.[2]
Only critical security updates will be provided unpaid. Paid support is still available.
Service Pack 2 supported until July 13, 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

Want to try again?

Re:Why Windows XP?

[ColdWetDog]

What??? You don't have one of those??? Don't you know that you are supposed to own at least one of every toy* that Steve Jobs sells. Just what kind of Mac user are you anyway???

* Apple TV excluded.

* Apple mice excluded as well.

Re:Why Windows XP?

[drinkypoo]

I'd guess they figure the Apple crowd overlaps the gadget crowd sufficiently that most potential users have/will buy a Kindle, while the Linux crowd is unlikely to buy [as many] eBooks (but may buy their device since it runs Linux and has hack value.) Whether those are accurate assumptions or not, they seem like the kind of things you might make a decision like this on. Or perhaps the fact that Windows has the vast majority of the market share. One wonders if it will run under Wine...

Re:Why Windows XP?

[jisatsusha]

The Kindle iPhone app is still only available in the US, despite being able to buy books internationally now.

Re:Why Windows XP?

[mysidia]

If you're a Mac user then you're supposed to already be using the free Kindle reader on your iPhone/iTouch.

Nope. I have just a Mac mini, no iPhone/iTouch, the latter two are too bloddy expensive.

And ATT's G3 coverage currently sux. Stick with Verizon/Sprint, and the iPhone actually isn't even available.

Re:Why Windows XP?

[mdwh2]

Yeah, why not AmigaOS? Or BeOS?

It's About Time

[Nom du Keyboard]

It's certainly more than past time for this if Amazon is trying to expand their market. Unless the Kindle is total profit (not likely), you want to be selling to as many markets as possible. Besides, for people who read a lot, they'll probably buy a Kindle anyway since it's a lot easier to carry and use for reading than a PC.

eBook readers

[SkOink]

Are there any eBook readers that are good with 8.5"x11" PDFs yet? I'd love having something to read scientific papers on, but I don't think a full page of 10-pt font would be very legible when reduced by a factor of two for a Kindle screen.

Re:eBook readers

[BStocknd]

There's the Kindle DX, which sports native PDF support and a 9.7" screen, but I haven't tried it myself. There are also a number of 3rd party products, including iRex who makes some with larger screens, but they're pretty pricey. The Kindle DX might be worth a shot if you want to spend the $489 to try it out.. might want to double check the return policy first though.

Re:eBook readers

[fluffy99]

AT that point, you could just buy a netbook. I think Amazon finally understands this and is offering a software solution to run on the PC. Perhaps they will eventually get out of the hardware end of this.

Re:eBook readers

[BStocknd]

Dude, the whole point of ebook readers is the e-ink.. netbooks don't have those! The e-ink has no backlight and has the same eye strain as a regular book. I couldn't imaging reading a whole book on an LCD screen.

MIsleading

[Hurricane78]

It's not for the PC. It's for Windows only. I don't see any other OSes there.

Also, I already have a better "Kindle" on my PC. It's called a "PDF reader". ^^

Re:MIsleading

[sopssa]

Windows is 94+% of PC desktop marketshare. Do you complain when games are "PC games" but only support Windows too?

Re:MIsleading

[AeneaTech]

To be quite honest, I find it weird that people use 'PC' as a synonym for 'PC running Windows', why not just say 'Windows'? as in: Windows games, Kindle on Windows, Windows only, etc.

Re:MIsleading

[OrangeTide]

A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator.

As someone who got their first computer in the 80s and saw the home computer market bloom into a personal computer market, it is odd that some people choose to define PC as being a Microsoft based device. When if you take the literal definition of personal computer, it would include Macs and possibly Linux only systems as well.

Re:MIsleading

[bornagainpenguin]

It's not for the PC. It's for Windows only. I don't see any other OSes there.

Also, I already have a better "Kindle" on my PC. It's called a "PDF reader". ^^

Blame Apple's now ubiquitous "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" commercials for the results of this oversimplification. Those ads were intended to position Apple as the only provider of alternatives to "PCs" with the assumption writ large all PCs are Microsoft machines. Now that they've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams Apple will be forced to wear "Mac" clothes for the next few decades and in this case being a "Mac" means not having a Kindle viewer for the time being.

It's a case of bed. make. lie.

What bothers me is now Linux distributors or any other providers of alternatives to either Apple's "Mac" or Microsoft's "PC" will have that much more difficulty in explaining who and what they are in the future... Maybe Novell wasn't all that far off the mark with their "...And I'm Linux" parody ads? While it is certainly suboptimal to comment on a competitor's advertising if using it as a framework makes it easier to get your point across to the willfully computer illiterate, why not?

--bornagainpenguin

Re:MIsleading

[honkycat]

I dunno, considering the importance/popularity of the IBM PC, the origins of the convention seem clear. Once the clones took over, you couldn't call it Mac vs IBM any more, and you need a name for that class of computer... Really, I can't remember the last time (if ever) I saw "PC" used to mean "personal computer" generally.

Re:MIsleading

[OrangeTide]

The use of PC to mean IBM PC dates long before the I'm a Mac campaign.

Re:MIsleading

[cerberusss]

I find it weird that people use 'PC' as a synonym for 'PC running Windows'

When working at Lucent (now Alcatel), colleagues referred to either a "PC" or a "workstation" meaning respectively a Windows-PC or a Solaris machine. Took some getting used to.

Re:MIsleading

[bornagainpenguin]

Nonsense. If you as an individual, don't like Apple's "I'm a Mac..." ads, that's one thing, but to suggest these ads were the reason Amazon hasn't released a Kindle reader for Mac yet is ridiculous.

Oh but I do like the Apple commercials! I think they're funny as all get out, but I recognize them for what they are, the codifying of "Macs" as something distinctly different than "PCs" with the implicit understanding that by "PCs" they are referring to Windows machines. In this paradigm there is no room for a third or even fourth party to exist. There is only "Mac" and "PC" and this is the way Apple likes it.

They don't get to go through all that work at setting the perception they way they did and then complain "Hey, Macs are PCs too! And what about Linux?" when this is the direct result of the mindshare they have created by those ubiquitous ads they pay so much for. Please read upwards to see who I was posting to, maybe then you'll understand what I'm getting at?

--bornagainpenguin

Re:MIsleading

[AeneaTech]

I dunno, considering the importance/popularity of the IBM PC, the origins of the convention seem clear. Once the clones took over, you couldn't call it Mac vs IBM any more, and you need a name for that class of computer... Really, I can't remember the last time (if ever) I saw "PC" used to mean "personal computer" generally.

Sure, am all for still naming the class of computer a PC but why assume it's also running Windows?

As a side note it's also absurd to just say Mac when they actually mean OSX these days. If I try to install a Mac only application on my Apple Mac running Linux or Windows it doesn't really work :D

Re:MIsleading

[honkycat]

:-)

I guess we'll just have to adopt the GNU/Linux naming convention. That way we can distinguish a Windows/PC from a GNU/Linux/PC from a GNU/BSD/PC from a GNU/Linux/Mac from a OSX/BSD/Mac from a.. oh wait, is that an OSX/BSD/Intel/Mac or an OSX/BSD/PPC/Mac? Argh! My head is going to explode!!

do it yourself

[idji]

you can even find the required .NET source code on Wikipedia if you have MS Office

Re:Thanks for the link

[Johnny Loves Linux]

I actually read some of the postings and I didn't see any evidence of "bitching". I did learn of an open source client called despotify that does support Linux and Mac OS X which I would be much more comfortable with. Now I'm guessing from your tone that you're not much of a Linux user or a Free(dom) software kind of guy so you might not grok why the offering of a free closed source binary is not unlike offering the free services of a prostitute who may or may not have several STDs on the condition of a) No condom allowed b) No permission to comment on the quality of the sex with anyone else. If the prostitute is "good looking enough" or a guy is desperate enough he might think it's worth the risk of having his dick fall off, but as a rule not every guy thinks some possibly good sex vs. the possibility having his dick fall off is a great bargain.

Re:Thanks for the link

[sopssa]

The story is almost full of comments about the closed-source nature of the spotify library. I do also use Linux myself, not on my primary desktop, but on servers and time-to-time messing around in Linux desktop too. Based on your nick I suspect you love the philosophy of Linux and GPL, which you guessed right, I dont that much as it's beside my area.

But the point here is that while Linux has less than 0.5% desktop market share, it still the bitchiest one and while *demanding* software, libraries and drivers from companies, goes into huge "fuck off" mode when they provide such as closed source for whatever reason (providing them as open source, free for all to use GPL'd may hurt their business, or it may violate their licenses with other companies).

It's great that even on Slashdot many Linux users see this issue and understand why companies dont support Linux more, but then theres the other growth who have got the whole GPL thing too much into their head without understanding the real issue.

They're working on a Mac OS X version

[donutello]

According to an Amazon spokesperson.

They already *have* an OS X version

[namespan]

Given that the iPhone is OS X, they already have an OS X version, albeit one that targets a somewhat different set of libraries.

Creating a desktop OS X version should pretty much be a matter of a 10% change in a few key UI pieces and swapping out CocoaTouch stuff for plain ol' Cocoa.

Re:They already *have* an OS X version

[adah]

That was the initial marketing fad. The official name is now the iPhone OS. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_OS

Re:Thanks for the link

[AceofSpades19]

Because the closed source drivers/programs usually suck and no one can improve on them except for the company that made them and therefore they won't stop sucking usually. If its open source, then if it sucks people can fix it. I believe Linux has about 1% marketshare or so and just because it has low market share doesn't mean the community should accept every contribution.

Re:Thanks for the link

[causality]

The story is almost full of comments about the closed-source nature of the spotify library. I do also use Linux myself, not on my primary desktop, but on servers and time-to-time messing around in Linux desktop too. Based on your nick I suspect you love the philosophy of Linux and GPL, which you guessed right, I dont that much as it's beside my area.

But the point here is that while Linux has less than 0.5% desktop market share, it still the bitchiest one and while *demanding* software, libraries and drivers from companies, goes into huge "fuck off" mode when they provide such as closed source for whatever reason (providing them as open source, free for all to use GPL'd may hurt their business, or it may violate their licenses with other companies).

It's great that even on Slashdot many Linux users see this issue and understand why companies dont support Linux more, but then theres the other growth who have got the whole GPL thing too much into their head without understanding the real issue.

There's another side to this, though.

If I am a company and I know that a portion of my customers strongly value software freedom, and then I release software (at no cost or any cost) that does not support such software freedom, and then I receive a backlash, that's my fault. That would be my own failure to understand the market I intended to reach. It would be like an automaker who only manufactures blue cars and expects that to work well in a market that overwhelmingly wants red cars. If the automaker blamed the market for that, it would be quite arrogant of them.

Now, I might decide that this market is not reachable, and decide that I won't bother producing anything for it. That'd be my prerogative. But if I am to try to reach them at all, I need to do that correctly by giving them what they want the way that they want it. A half-assed effort to do that which backfires is not the community's fault. What would I expect, exactly? For that community to give up ideals and principles which are very dear to it just to use my product? The scenario you mention above was not just a failure, it was a predictable failure.

If we are truly honest, and cut through all the marketing and bullshit, there's only one real reason why every IT-related company would ever use proprietary formats instead of open standards. They are afraid of competing in an open market, with a level playing field, on the basis of who can produce the best implementation of those open standards. As a customer or a potential customer, their fear of doing this doesn't interest me. In fact, if they were forced to do this, the result would be lower prices and better interoperability for everyone. So why, again, should I feel sorry for a company that doesn't want to do things this way and caught a little flak for it?

Really, the loyalty, benefit of doubt, and sympathy that is shown to corporations that would not hesitate to exploit or take advantage of you in any way that they can is staggering (ever heard of vendorlock?). I for one am not buying it.

Markup is not the only problem

[Gonoff]

I just looked at the UK Amazon site.

They list it at £199. According to Google, this is $324.569 and some zeroes. A more realistic comparison is $400 if the exchange rate was actually set at the true relative value of £ and $.

For this, we get a "cut down" version and a much smaller choice of books.

If the application is free (unlikely), I might consider it for my laptop. For now, the Nook sounds interesting but the Sony one is actually here and a lot cheaper than the Kindle. I just have to ask myself "Do I actually want one?" We'll see...

Re:Markup is not the only problem

[Fred_A]

I just looked at the UK Amazon site.

They list it at £199. According to Google, this is $324.569 and some zeroes. A more realistic comparison is $400 if the exchange rate was actually set at the true relative value of £ and $.

I just checked this in France and the Amazon home page lists the kindle as being available on "amazon.com". So apparently it's priced at $259 + tax which should add up to $309.80 (+ shipping). So until they sell it on their local pages with the "usual" exchange rate ($1 for a bit more than a euro), I suppose it's some sortof a good deal for people who want one.

There doesn't seem to be much localised content (although Le Monde seems to be available) which may or may not be a problem for the early adopters here (if there are any).

RTFA

[OrangeTide]

"Kindle for PC is also a great way for people around the world to read the most popular books of today even if they don't yet have a Kindle."

The PC application will be offered as a free download and will support Windows 7, Vista and XP systems.

It's free, because it doesn't cost Amazon anything to deliver a book to your computer (unlike the wireless service they use). But the price for the ebook includes the cost to deliver it (that's not included in the price of the Kindle)

Re:Thanks for the link

[Anonymous Coward]

That is pure ignorance on your part.

If I am a company and I know that a portion of my customers strongly value software freedom, and then I release software (at no cost or any cost) that does not support such software freedom, and then I receive a backlash, that's my fault. That would be my own failure to understand the market I intended to reach

I used to work for a company that released some closed source binaries, we got nothing but complaints and demands that we were either in breach of the GPL or just being corporate bastards as various people wanted to customise the drivers. The fact was we had code in there that did not belong to us and we were not permitted to make it open source did not seem to matter to them, so rather than make nothing at all for the linux community we chose to at least provide binaries, from what I understand they don't even bother with that anymore due to the negative response they got from an honest attempt to do as much as we could for the community.

Re:Why e-books are bad for you.

[wardred]

There is no single industry that's guaranteed to be a money maker forevermore. I believe right now we're purchasing more books then just about any other time in history, so I don't think book publishers have to look out for the digital bogey man just yet. Even in today's economy we could suffer through massive numbers of people making a transition to electronic books. It's not the authors, publishers, editors, or marketers who'd be hurt by this. Mostly it would be the guys in the manufacturing plants, warehouses, and retail. Even there, I don't think that the market for paperbacks will suddenly disappear over night. If it does look like it's going to disappear, there will be plenty of notice for those in the industry, should they heed the signs - and I think it would be more likely that if it dries up it would because people are buying fewer books, at least in the short to middle term.

There are other traditional paper based products that are already hurting...newspapers. (Maybe magazines too, I don't know.) I could actually see a small revitalization of that industry with e-book readers. If the price is right, I could see more people subscribing to a hard hitting national/international paper via e-ink devices. If done *RIGHT*, and priced right, I could see a reason for at least the national / international newspapers to start differentiating themselves again based on content and regions they focus on. They could also open up their archives. They wouldn't make nearly as much as selling their archive to a library, but selling enough subscriptions to the archives at a reasonable price should be worth the trade off. (They could also sell DVD/Blue Ray/Whatever copies of their archives, but I'm thinking more of a lookup service where the person doesn't really want to keep a whole archive of the papers locally.)

Heck, priced right and with actual stories in it, I wouldn't mind subscribing to local papers this way. Done right it would be something like a searchable microfiche - the original "image" of the paper, but with the text stored in a indexed database, adds and images indexed too.

The actual manufacturing, shipping, storage and selling of books does generate jobs, but a lot of that is in the lower end of the job spectrum. Warehouse work and retail. Not that we want to lose more of these jobs, but this end of the job market has always faced the specter of that particular job disappearing for whatever reason. No more profitable mining to be done, lumber mills closing, fisheries becoming unprofitable, what have you. Shipping and logging don't just rely on book sales. Publishers aren't going anywhere anytime soon, just as I don't really see music publishers going out of business either. The editing, marketing, and all the "traditional" roles of a top tier publisher will remain. It will be a while before the format wars on e-books stabilizes. I hope we do end up with an iTunes clear winner in this industry - even if it has DRM to start - because one of the worst things for it would be that magazines A,B,C are only accessible on device Y, academic book publishers go with device Z, these paper back publishers go with product X, etc. One $200+ device I can live with, but having to own multiple devices with the specter of the device I own ending up on the losing side of a format war, and possibly having a large chunk of my library obsolete is...unappealing.

oh sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all over this opportunity to collect a bunch of books that I don't really own my copies of and can be deleted without my consent. >g

Re:Why e-books are bad for you.

[Tristfardd]

There are a look of good aspects to e-books and the future holds a world based on electronic information rather than paper-based. Still, today, we have a very bad economic situation with high unemployment and it doesn't look to get better soon. I find it hard to see how see how e-books will improve things. If e-books were made here, then I would feel differently. You are right in that the jobs involved are at the lower end of pay spectrum. Right now, though, jobs are jobs. There are times when a nation is robust and can absorb more change than at other times. Right now we aren't robust. You wrote a very well-thought response. Thank you.

It's a computer

[OrangeTide]

To most people, it's just a computer.

good

[yesreplica]

very very good! from yesreplica