-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 hi I wanted to expand on my last email a little. This should, hopefully, be the last email on this subject, because I imagine you all are getting tired of this subject. I use bookshare every day. I think I've had an account since, roughly, late 2007, early 2008. It's a fantastic resource for disabled people to get books. My biggest issue hasn't been bookshare, or the daisy standard itself, although drm in the daisy spec is a problem, but rather getting interest among the linux blind community and outside it, for writing an application to handle the format. The standard is similar to epub, the tags are similar, if not nearly identical. The file names are slightly different, so that normal epub readers usually fail to open a daisy 3 book. When attempting to get interest outside the linux community I tend to get (heavily paraphrased) "linux? Why are you using that? Just use windows, man. It's got tons of choices, I'm not going out of my way to support a handful of users." This makes me very angry, but I'll skip the rant. When trying to get interest among the linux community, responses vary. If I ask a blind person, I tend to get something like "daisy? You should use another standard. It's antequated and complicated. Complain to bookshare to switch to a different format." This, I won't do. It's not bookshare's fault that the standard is complex, and I have to be able to handle the formats blind websites choose to go with. Among the sighted, I tend to get "daisy? What's that?" When I explain, there's interest, until I mention the drm. "uh, well ... we won't be able to support that, sorry." This is a catch 22. I seem to have two choices. Allow someone to write a closed source application to handle the drm by blind libraries that use it, currently learning ally and the national library service, or have an open source app that is not able to handle these formats. I've tried, and tried, to talk to these people and I always get something like "sorry, we can't help you. We're boxed in. Publishers are too afraid of piracy. Use our players." Anyone have any idea how frustrating this is? I'm an open source advocate, and yet ...I've had two application developers say they'll add daisy support to their app. It hasn't materialized yet, but I'm positive. An application called ppub, which is a gtk epub reader, and the main developer of gnome books. I'm hoping this happens. But the issue with drm remains. What do I do? I'm extremely reluctant to, and probably will refuse, to accept a closed application to handle daisy books. That would be the equivalent of using a closed source screen reader. I just won't do it. Thoughts? I could really use some advice Thanks Kendell clark
Jim Fruchterman wrote: > Enjoying the conversation, but want to point out again a really key > point that keeps getting stated in a way prone to misunderstanding. > Bookshare DOES NOT use DRM. Bookshare thinks DRM gets in the way > of accessibility, which is why we DO NOT use DRM. We are FLOSS > developers and anti-DRM campaigners. > > We have an API for developers to download our 340,000+ accessible > books, which you can download in DAISY XML (which should be really > easy to get working in an app that supports EPUB), or BRF, or MP3. > None of these files have technical protection mechanisms that get > in the way of loading them into other devices or apps. We do put > the name of the person who downloaded the book into the file (in > plaintext). We then search the Interwebs for Bookshare books that > are being made openly available. Out of the 1-2 million books > downloaded each year, we find less than 10 instances of Bookshare > content showing up in search engines. Over time, we've seen that > 90% of those still have the plaintext name of the downloader in the > file: that means these are not "pirates," they are ordinary people > and teachers who are a bit unclear on how the school's website > facilities work. This helps us make the point that DRM is worse > than useless in our field, and we've successfully convinced over > 500 publishers to give us all of their digital content for free > because the content will actually get to the people we serve. > > So, I'd very much appreciate it if we don't get bundled in with the > other DAISY libraries which regretfully tend to use DRM. > > And, I'd be surprised if it took more than a few hours of work to > hack a Linux app that read EPUB XML to read DAISY XML with the same > kinds of key reading functionality, since the tag sets are so > closely aligned. > > Jim > > > -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of kendell clark > Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 2:38 PM To: tim; [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Osdc-list] the digital accessible information format > > hi Yup, this is completely accurate. You can open the xml file up > in firefox. However, there are a number of problems with this > approach. You don't get a nice sorted list of books by title, > firefox does not restore your reading position to the point you > were when you stopped the book, and the bigger the book, the longer > firefox takes to open it. I've been thinking on this long and hahrd > for a while, and I think the biggest problem of all isn't > necessarily the daisy standard itself, but the restrictive and > draconian series of laws that allow agencies to record books in > specific formats for the blind. Because the riaa and other > corporations are usually on the standards body's boards, they can > implement, or push for, drm in the standards. Even epub has an > optional drm mechanism if I remember correctly. Until the fear of > piracy, I hate that term, goes away, us blind people are going to > continue to be forced to deal with a ton of inconvenience. Unless, > of course, we run windows. Then it will all "just work." Sorry, I'm > a little bitter. It's not easy to use linux, and deal with the > knowledge that if I just gave up my open source principals and > switched back to windows, I could have all the convenient software > I don't have now. It's hard, and grates on a guy after a while. > Thanks Kendell clark > > > tim wrote: >> I think this is a fabulous Idea! as it stands, there's only 1 >> Daisy player I know of for GNU/Linux, and thats only capable of >> playing cd's with a daisy book on them that I am aware of, there >> isn't a proper reader for say, reading bookshare books, etc, yes, >> you can read them in Firefox with the XML file, but still! the >> hole thing DRM and all leaves a lot to be desired, I don't think >> you can even listen to or read Bard books on Linux, Storm wrote a >> nice script to make the task of downloading/unzipping Bard books >> a bit easier, but thats about as far as it goes I believe. Lol I >> could go on a rant about the hole DRM thing, Learning ally, >> bookshare etc on hear but maybe that's best for the article. On >> 5/13/15 16:29, kendell clark wrote: hi all I've been thinking >> about writing an article on opensource.com to expand on my >> accessibility in linux article. This one will be discussing the >> challenges us blind people face when trying to read the same >> books as sighted people, primarily revolving around the only >> blind specific standard for these books, the digital accessible >> information system, or daisy. Highlights will include problems >> with the spec, the drm mechanism, the audio formats it supports, >> and general disinterest in the blind linux community in >> supporting the format. Any thoughts? Should I cover something >> else? I'm still new to writing open source articles, and feedback >> is very much welcome Thanks Kendell clark Sent from Sonar >> GNU/Linux >>> >>> _______________________________________________ Osdc-list >>> mailing list | This is a place for our readers, writers, >>> moderators and artists to discuss matters concerning >>> Opensource.com and otherwise do the work that makes this a >>> community practicing the open source way. >>> >>> Sign-up for our weekly newsletter: >>> http://opensource.com/email-newsletter >>> >>> Send a message: [email protected] Change preferences: >>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list Unsubscribe: >>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/options/osdc-list >>> > > > _______________________________________________ Osdc-list mailing > list | This is a place for our readers, writers, moderators and > artists to discuss matters concerning Opensource.com and otherwise > do the work that makes this a community practicing the open source > way. > > Sign-up for our weekly newsletter: > http://opensource.com/email-newsletter > > Send a message: [email protected] Change preferences: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list Unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/options/osdc-list > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJVVnQ2AAoJEGYgJ5/kqBTddy8QAKCh6YPHFZn5yxD63aAdhQp5 n4Th+PAiyeaeJ8UxgRV+HeRiw94VNpenKCcaz6HtI4np+2FScn2dI0rlSGuXZkLj yVB3zJpOiV62qJfC6+0yMvKel0A3QVHSEyRKyrdRHOPt5wfGNK1xyg4xsQZ9OYat i+uVwg8yi+jiNjNOgTImCkML4de3JJpiiyRLTC8Q4yyw9wD71exuLQgonj8Tnwb2 e3N8OnsrTcXMYdjw2TNNeHxnI0QMi12xC46uDmdb3lsuWB8ByAkQDLAPeaUxLhpp ctLoDyGeObZkFqIJyJfAfBENG5grVyx6LnVgfqN2atLBPPL4iPXJTFzbApuL/lDs rC/ushyaJfv3vgvbUO0ffWgQqYIPElzYs0awonn2AUXf01XCFhuN5gahuG5lJXcJ 5ReJv9cf8YO9qZUqnf54U2kDXYGx1+eBBEq58oLDnYMg9AMuw36d07UKd8zkeeJ8 OC/6fDfrgnpmpI78k/qkgbAx8tR6LIGv9alCQhqQI0VZDcMaLbClI4m+hyUhN2oQ DNQYjcfKNSFjvrXlbP+PZvMShAUdKnZZr9IqeEM0tyWYb2w1Wn80BiABYFjGgc1Z RQ4BiW/Gal8cLWMtwPcNCEGtp4F1tu1XLUtL/e4B8mnCD1sIXjbw/4+7UpYVZ9bZ eRvyfhyIj6O9CYTMfKWr =hqGk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Osdc-list mailing list | This is a place for our readers, writers, moderators and artists to discuss matters concerning Opensource.com and otherwise do the work that makes this a community practicing the open source way. 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