Yeah!
regards,
southpark
On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@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-textbooks...
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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