Book People Archive

Re: What's an ebook? and what's a book? stating the obvious (which often seems to be ignored)

On Sat, 17 Mar 2001, richard seltzer wrote:

> According to Amazon.com, "An e-book, or electronic book, is a digital book
> that you can read on a computer screen or electronic device. A reader is the
> device or software to which you download your e-book in order to read it.
> Amazon.com currently supports the Microsoft software reader. You can
> purchase an e-book from Amazon.com at any time, but you must have a reader
> installed and activated on your computer before you can download an e-book
> you have bought."

Why should we let some new company redefine our work?

There were thousands of Etexts already on the Net before any of us ever
heard of Amazon.

I am perfectly happy with the definitions we have been using:

An Ebook or eBook is the physical device that we carry around.

An Etext or eText is the file[s] we read when displayed by such an Ebook.

The book is the phyisical, the text is what is written in it. . .this doesn't
require any definitions that haven't been in use for centuries.

> 
> For the world's largest seller of books, that is a very limited definition
> of ebook, and an even more limited policy -- as if Microsoft needs to be
> part of the equation? 

[snip]

> In my righteous indignation, I wanted to
> send a message to Amazon, giving them an accurate definition of ebook.
> 

If you really think they will listen, you can forward them my regards,
as above.

> I'd be tempted to define an electronic book as a book distributed in digital
> form, rather than on paper. It may be distributed by download, email, ftp,
> on diskette, on CD-ROM, on DVD, etc. Its format may be plain text, HTML,
> SGML, PDF, or any of a variety of encrypted formats. Unless special
> restrictive technology is applied, an ebook can be freely copied to
> computers and from computer to computer and saved on digital storage media
> of all kinds. It can also be printed on a computer printer and read in paper
> form.

for the kind of argument you are contemplating, I would keep it simpler
than you have above. . .K.I.S.S. works for political statements. . . .
             
[snip]

> A book is a meaningful assemblage of many words. 

A book is a medium. . .the words are the content transmitted with the medium.

[Massive Snip. . .if we really expect people to read and so as you suggest,
I think we have to keep it short and simple.]


Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!


Michael S. Hart
<hart@[redacted]>
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100