Hoi,
The EULA currently in use prohibits the use of material that is offered
anywhere except in the Apple store. They have also broken the mold of the
standard. Consequently adopting the Apple model would technically support
Apple devices.
Both reasons are enough not to use Apple at all in an education setting and
for material available under a free license.
Thanks,
Gerard
On 25 January 2012 23:12, Gregory Varnum <gregory.varnum(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm confused by what you mean by "walled
garden". If this were the same
as the App Store model where they have a custom iOS app format and their
store is the only place to get it - that would make sense to me. That
doesn't seem to be the case here..
My understanding was the ebooks created with iBook Author works in any
ebooks store that supports HTML5 standards. I've been testing some ebooks
we threw together on lots of devices (almost all non-Apple) with no
problems. We've even turned some of them into interactive web pages.
I haven't heard of this software breaking the current standard so much as
further enabling HTML5 within it - but I could be wrong.
-greg
On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi,
I think we should not support Apple in breaking the standard and in
preventing us from using our work anywhere else. We take pride in being
freely licensed and there is no excuse for the walled garden approach
taken
by Apple. There is also no excuse for us
endorsing this behaviour.
Obviously as what we do is freely licensed or public domain you can do
whatever as long as the license requirements are maintained. I am sure
that
as a consequence you cannot legally publish in
Apple's walled garden. I
hate to see anything done in this area that is endorsed by the Wikimedia
Foundation.
Thanks,
Gerard
On 20 January 2012 10:46, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>
wrote:
> (This mail is focused on books, but the topic is of more general
> interest IMHO, thus foundation-l)
>
> Hi all,
>
> I just saw the "iBooks Author" news:
>
>
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/a-closer-look-at-ibooks-author-textbook…
Of course, all these pretty books will be only available in the Apple
paywalled garden.
So I thought: As they use basically HTML5 (plus a few proprietary
libraries), could we produce such interactive, tablet/phone-enabled
e-books ("wBooks" as in "Wikimedia":-) from free content? I believe
the answer is yes, though it might be quite a push technologically
(just to be clear, I am speaking of the books here, not of the
authoring software).
Also: Should we? I believe the answer is yes as well, for two reasons.
One, Apples work here might (yet again) set a new standard, which
means everything falling short of that standard will be neglected by
the target audience, which runs counter to our declared goal of
disseminating free knowledge; standing still might well mean falling
behind. Another reason is the opportunity that Apple creates for us
here: Once such e-books become accepted as general teaching tools in
schools, it will be much easier to switch from Apple-only, costly
books to run-everywhere, free books; they might just win the
"technology battle" for us.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Magnus
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