Book readers: will proprietary format wars ruin them, too?  I'd be tempted to
get an Amazon Kindle or another of of those electronic book readers if i could
be confident it didn't require proprietary windows/mac software, and could take
just about anything from say the Project Gutenberg website. (Anything txt, html,
pdf, etc).

Are there any concerns with these readers?   Sony has one too.

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gregjohn wrote:
> Book readers: will proprietary format wars ruin them, too?  I'd be tempted to
> get an Amazon Kindle or another of of those electronic book readers if i could
> be confident it didn't require proprietary windows/mac software, and could take
> just about anything from say the Project Gutenberg website. (Anything txt, html,
> pdf, etc).

My understanding is you don't need proprietary software, and you can put 
plain text on them just fine. This from someone who owns one, but I'd 
suggest finding a copy of the manual before buying. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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gregjohn <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> Book readers: will proprietary format wars ruin them, too?  I'd be tempted to
> get an Amazon Kindle or another of of those electronic book readers if i could
> be confident it didn't require proprietary windows/mac software

  Sometimes I feel that companies developing all kinds of protections to
their hardware/software are, at least in some cases, actually decreasing
the sales of that product because of that, which is, quite ironically,
the exact opposite effect of what they were aiming for with the protections
in the first place...

  Perhaps it's a question of principle? "We are ready to sell less if it
means that it will be pirated less." Or in other words, "we don't want
more money if it also means that it will be pirated more".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Perhaps it's a question of principle? 

I suspect the books are way more profitable, percentage-wise, than the 
hardware. If you can lose a hardware sale that nets you $50 and avoid 
that person pirating six books each of which nets you $10, you come out 
ahead anyway.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote

> Are there any concerns with these readers?   Sony has one too.

Readers need to come down in price considerably to make any sort of impact.
I'd rather buy an Asus EEE right now as a reader.

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