[Foundation-l] iBooks vs. wBooks?

[Dirk Franke]

Yeah!

regards,

southpark

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at 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-and-exclusivity/
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>