Demanding Open Standards Support Is Registering A Preference

This post is about expanding some thoughts and discussions I've been having on Identi.ca this morning around the epub format and the new Amazon Kindle 3. Calibre does convert a great many formats, it also optionally manages your collection, lets you edit metatags, transfer ebooks to and from your device. Converting epubs to a format the device accepts is no problem. It's about registering a preference for me.

When I buy an mp3 player, I want it to play ogg, as much as converting it from ogg to mp3 is very easy, I'd rather it plays ogg natively. I make a point of checking reviews, comments etc on devices for ogg compatibility, and all else being equal, I use my choice as a user and consumer to buy the player which plays ogg natively. Why? I want my preference for ogg to be counted. It's really that simple.

Of course when you buy something the manufacturer has no clue which features sold you, or put you off from competing devices, the only thing they do know is that you forked over money for it. This is where reviews, forums, blog posts, microblog recommendation come in. Make it known why you chose X over Y. You can even let the manufacturers know directly through feedback forms on their sites.

This is why I look for the ogg version of an audiocast to subscribe to, and choose the mp3 version if no ogg is available. It's why I offer ogv as an option for every episode of the Digital Prism Screencast. I want the people doing those casts to be able to show numbers of ogg subscribers or downloaders as part of a movement to encourage more people to offer it, that people are actually stating they have a preference for it, and that their preference is counted somewhere.

It's far too easy for companies to say "nobody uses that format" if they don't offer it as a choice. Like sites that are built for IE and refuse to work in anything other than IE on Windows, then the company claim "all our visitors use IE on Windows, why would we bother to support anything else?" Of course they are if your site won't work in anything else, you created that result by your own narrow minded policies. I am a Linux user on Firefox, I want my preferences to be noted in the log numbers for sites I visit, I don't want to have to have to switch the agent strings and pretend to be IE on Windows.

I want to be one of the customers who have expressed a preference for that function, to let the manufacturers know their decision to include or exclude it directly affected my decision of which player to spend money on. I have come to the conclusion that ebook readers are the same thing with epub.

The epub format is an open standard format, it can be DRM'd for the industry fools who continue to insist that DRM is good for their customers, but it does not need to be. It's also not locked to any vendor, nor create a binary blob of a file that only opens in certain apps. Choosing a device that handles epub natively is just as much a political statement sent back to the manufacturers as ogg playback on mp3 players is.

The more people who demand their devices handle open standard file formats as well as the companies own binary blob from their own little publishing islands, and more importantly refuse to buy devices which don't have that functionality, the sooner manufacturers will feel that they have no choice but to include it, or face low sales and profits.

Supporting open file format standards is different from the software or hardware being open source to read or play them. I am a FOSS advocate, I'd rather use FOSS software, and all else being equal I do. If the device is good, responsive and easy to use, I'm not all that bothered whether it's closed source or not. The key is the file formats. The file formats are where the lock-in occur.

I want an office suite that natively works well with odf, I want an mp3 player that natively works well with ogg, and I want an ebook reader that natively works well with epub. For this I am torn, since the Kindle 3 does appear to tick all the boxes for what I want, except the native epub part. I am not actually looking for an ebook reader right now, I got a Sony eReader a while back which is great, still working fine and does handle epub natively. This is more about keeping an eye on what's happening, since I've found that I love the idea of an ereader, and know I'm hooked on the concept, whatever the device happens to be that I'm using. When my Sony reader dies I will be scrambling around for something to replace it.