[Foundation-l] iBooks vs. wBooks?

[Gerard Meijssen]

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 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
>