
Open-source, DRM-free Kindle alternative - depressedCorgi
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7x5kpb/anyone-can-build-this-open-source-drm-free-kindle-alternative
======
GekkePrutser
This isn't really equivalent to a kindle though. The fonts are basic, there's
no enclosure. Fonts are a huge thing for eReaders and Amazon has spent a lot
of time perfecting them.

It's also important to remember that it's perfectly possible to use the Kindle
without DRM. You can just put your own books on it with a cable, though you'll
have to convert them to MOBI as it doesn't do ePub. The same can be done with
other brands like Kobo, which can take raw ePub. Also, the Kobo's can be
pretty easily modified as they just run plain Linux, I'm running PyGame on an
older one. The entire OS was simply on an internal SD card so really easily
modified (though not sure if the new ones can be modified too).

I think the problem with DRM and ebooks is not the readers. It's the
availability of books without DRM... Basically the "GOG" of eBook stores. Even
if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books from?

I think for the reader, I would prefer to buy commercial hardware as look and
feel is an important thing for a device you will interact with a lot. Similar
to the way us Open Source aficionados don't build our own laptops, but do use
free software :)

~~~
komali2
> Even if you have an open eBook reader, where are you going to get the books
> from?

There's a huge ebook pirating scene, so you could always do that, buying the
book beforehand if the ethics disturb you.

What is sad to me is that there's no way to check out an ebook from a library
in a way that doesn't involve Amazon.

~~~
amwelles
> there's no way to check out an ebook from a library in a way that doesn't
> involve Amazon

Isn't this what Libby - [https://libbyapp.com/](https://libbyapp.com/) \-
does?

~~~
0xCMP
But then you can't use it on an e-reader. It remains in the app.

~~~
vel0city
Libby (and by extension Overdrive) supports checking out books onto supported
e-readers. They must support either the Kindle or Adobe DRM standards though.

[https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6059.htm](https://help.libbyapp.com/en-
us/6059.htm)

------
wegs
I'd buy one if:

1) It was prebuilt, plug-and-play.

2) It comes as a kit. I can do it as a project with my kid. Once assembled,
it's as above. Kit is consumer-friendly.

Digikey parts list and PCB is a little over my laziness tolerance.

People confuse free-as-in-freedom with free-as-in-not-making-a-profit. I've
done free-as-in-freedom businesses, successfully. I wish others did too.

A lot of manufacturers underestimate the power of 100% open. I'm not price-
sensitive. I'll pay for it. If my cheap Chinese
[tablet/keyboard/mouse/webcam/etc.] comes with a PCB schematic, parts list,
and open source firmware, I'll probably pay triple and prefer it to a
Logitech/Razor/etc. I'll give nice online reviews too.

And the designs are simple enough no competitive edge is lost.

On the other side, projects like this, lacking a business model, rarely get
mature enough for me to use. Make 'em nice and sell 'em, I say.

And yes, there will be cheaper clones, so profit margins can't be insane, but
people will pay extra for the original branded version, AND profit margins
can't be insane in competitive markets either way.

~~~
bittercynic
Digikey parts list + pcb can be a reasonably convenient way to put your own
kit together - you can upload a csv to digikey and have them fill your
shopping cart automatically, and it works pretty well. They even suggest
alternatives like if your list had 8x an item, but it is actually cheaper to
buy 10x the item it will suggest that.

~~~
wegs
One big difference is that if I order a parts list and PCB based on your web
site, if you've made an error or have a part missing, I'm stuck debugging. If
you're putting together a kit, you've (presumably) gone through and made sure
it's all there and all works together. That includes the auxiliary stuff, like
firmware, or having a case.

Another big difference is if I place three orders, and one comes up out-of-
stuck or delayed by months, I get stuck with a useless 2/3 of a kit. I can't
return the useless 2/3, since those vendors didn't mess up. If you're selling
me a kit, you're doing logistics for me.

Even with things with standard parts, like putting a computer or bicycle
together from standardized parts, I've had issues. With DIY, this thing can
explode.

~~~
Brian_K_White
As someone who has several pcb + digikey projects, I don't buy this.

It's literally 2 clicks instead of one click. 3 clicks to add the 3d-printed
part fromShapeways.

It IS already exactly, a kit. You get a box in the mail that has everything in
it, it just says DigiKey on the box instead of mydumbproject.org

That's 3 fully pre-loaded urls all together in one spot. No uploading a csv.
Just click the link and up pops a pre-loaded shopping cart. If anything is out
of stock, you see that before buying not after they ship 1/2 of it.

I'm exactly the same amount likely to "forget to include some parts" in my
painstakingly crafted digikey cart as in any kit. It takes days sometimes to
hunt down and figure out just what all should go in the cart because there are
500 versions of everything. You don't do that much work to leave things out.

I want to share my efforts for whoever wants it, or just for reference, not
run a mail order business. I have a day job. The stuff is free, the knowledge
and directions are written up into a followable recipe, in a wiki and github
which _I_ don't even have to be the only one who can improve over time, and
you only have to pay the actual material suppliers, and fill out 3 order forms
instead of one. And when I lose interest or die, it's all still there without
me to keep providing it.

If you think it makes so much sense to provide that last little bit of
service, and charge for it, feel free to start up and run that business. You
can take all my stuff and produce and sell those kits. I bet you have no
interest in that though because you have better things to do. Yeah, me too,
and this ereader guy too. If you want anything more, you want a Kobo or any of
the other 50 rootable no-names. Those already exist. You don't need this or a
kit version of this for that.

Figuring out what all to put in that digikey cart was the 900x hard part, but
clicking 2 links instead of one is just over your laziness threshhold? OK.

You have to buy the pcb from a different link? Well you have to buy batteries
from somewhere else even for a complete finished product let alone a kit, and
a protective cover, and a memory card, and a car charger, and headphones, any
number of extra bits like that. The book reader didn't already come with the
books I hate to surprise you with that outrageous ommission. This argument
just doesn't wash on so many levels.

~~~
wegs
I'm not complaining about what you're doing. I'm describing what I want. You
can accuse me of being unreasonable, but people said the same thing about
remote controls. Who'd be lazy to not just want to walk over and switch a
channel on the TV? And countless other conveniences.

I'm also not asking YOU to do anything differently. You have a day job, and
with however many kits you've made, no way in heck this would compete with
YOUR day job. I also want a blueberry plant in my back yard. Neither you, nor
this ereader guy, nor even the local garden store have any obligation to give
me that. It's a free market.

But yes, I do think there's a pretty good business in providing that last
little bit of service. I'd pay for it, and I suspect many others would as
well. You can view this as an integration of Digikey+Shapeways+PCB. Or you can
view this as an expansion of AdaFruit/SEEED/etc. to be more open. Or you can
view this as moving cheap Chinese manufacturing up-market.

And I'd buy an open source Kobo too, for that matter. There's a world of
difference between a rootable device and an open source device too. Most
rootable devices I have are now sitting in storage somewhere, unused, when the
fun ran out and the maintenance overhead kicked in. One or two were never
used, as rooting became a pain-in-the-butt, some feature I needed was missing,
or there was some hardware change between the rooted version and the one I
bought. Most open source devices I have are in active use, some with a few
tweaks.

I'm glad to support open. I value my freedom. I also like having things which
keep working, and open mitigates risks (if the manufacturer goes under, the
community sometimes takes over). I'm glad to pay for that.

However, I'm busy, and I'm not glad to buy a headache. That goes double for
people less technical than you or me, ones who want projects for kids, etc.

------
utf_8x
The kindle doesn't lock you into Amazon's ecosystem though... It supports many
different formats, Calibre allows you to convert your books to a kindle-
specific format for convenience and I've yet to find an ebook DRM that can't
be easily cracked...

~~~
mmm_grayons
Same experience here. I have literally never purchased a single book from
Amazon, though I have read lots of their free "classics editions". I've
jailbroken my paperwhite so I can read/do whatever I want, but I still get
great battery life and the ability to do things like send to my kindle over
e-mail. I get the free-as-in-freedom guys' argument, but I'm perfectly happy
with my device and like the convenience of a simple book-reading device.

~~~
utf_8x
Exactly. Don't get me wrong, I love open source hardware as much as the next
guy but fixing something that isn't broken is a plain old waste of time.

------
Wowfunhappy
I want an e-ink web browsing tablet.

I want to be able to go to nytimes.com, or Vox, or Hacker News, and read the
articles and comment threads on a high-contrast screen that doesn't hurt my
eyes. I don't want to use some read-later service that sends specific articles
to my e-reader, I want to just navigate to the sites directly. There would be
trade-offs for sure, but it seems like the benefits would outweigh the
downsides.

I've been waiting for ~ 10 years now. Am the only one? Is anyone ever going to
make this?

~~~
cherioo
Those exists now, in the form of eink Android phone/tablet. The refresh rate
of eink makes their experience suboptimal, but some find it usable enough.

You can search for Boox tablet, or Hisense A5 phone.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Oh that's interesting, I missed this one:
[https://www.techrepublic.com/article/review-onyx-boox-
max3-a...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/review-onyx-boox-
max3-a-13-e-ink-android-tablet/)

I know I shouldn't be complaining about price now that I've heard it exists at
all, but $840 is _really_ steep! I was thinking something more like $400. I
know it's a niche product, but even so.

~~~
microtherion
The Max3 has a giant screen (larger than the biggest iPad Pro). I'm still
getting used to mine, but I mostly like it.

The web browsing experience is OK, but it's slow and monochrome.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Monochrome is expected. Do you say it's slow because of the screen's refresh
rate, or do pages take a long time to render?

I'm kind of eying the BOOX Nova2, which is in my price range at $340. The
screen is 7.8", which is ~ 2" smaller than what I'd ideally want, but not by
much.

~~~
microtherion
It's mostly the refresh rate, I think. The processor is fairly decent.

------
qwerty456127
PocketBook is a reasonable DRM-free all-format alternative to Kindle.

~~~
Jedd
Agreed. I've used their devices since the Pocketbook 360 days (5" screen with
a hard cover - features that were uncommon).

It eventually stopped working this year, and a new review of the market place
suggested they're one of the better options - so I picked up the HD3.

I can not understand how anyone could accept a vendor (especially one like
Amazon) limiting or remote controlling my device's contents.

------
hmart
I vow for open standards and used to upload epub files to Google Play Books
and read in my devices (Kindle Fire 8 - with Google Play sideloaded, iPhone,
iPad) with decent Sync. In december I got a Kobo Aura 2, my eyes are more
comfortable have less distractions but I lost ubiquity and sync, also E-reader
feels slugish and dictionary font is very small even with glasses. It's a take
the blue/red pill situation.

~~~
app4soft
I'm so sad that _WikiReader_ project, debuted in 2009, was abandoned in
2014.[0]

Hopefully, _The Open Book_ looks more promising & would be able to fully
replace _WikiReader_.

JFTR, Need write an article about _The Open Book Project_ [1] on Wikipedia.[2]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader)

[1] [https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-
Book](https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book)

------
jonahbenton
Hoping for good things for this product but will put in an plug for the
Remarkable- open source software, well designed and capable hardware, solid
product vision.

~~~
skyfaller
Are you sure it's accurate to say the Remarkable uses open source software?
Their website says it runs on "Codex — A purposely designed Linux-based
operating system for low-latency digital paper displays", so at least the
Linux kernel is open source, but look at their EULA:
[https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/36000028275...](https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360000282757-reMarkable-End-User-License-Agreement)

"You are not entitled to modify or distribute the Software."

Doesn't sound like open source software to me.

Also, in this day and age, I believe that devices should be open hardware as
well (as the Open Book appears to be). Open source software is a good start,
but it isn't good enough.

Another Kindle alternative that is open software + open hardware is the
Inkplate 6, I've pre-ordered one:
[https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6](https://www.crowdsupply.com/e-radionica/inkplate-6)

~~~
jonahbenton
I take the point, but two responses-

1) in practical terms, what you get is essentially an open, hackable platform.
The CTO is a former KDE dev, you get root on the device, much of the product
is being developed in the open-

[https://github.com/reMarkable](https://github.com/reMarkable)

And there are recipes for getting UI and background components running on the
device. I have not done this, but do use the API in my own workflow to get
content on the device.

2) Yes, they are building a _product_. A, say, religious commitment to open
source, and/or open hardware, is a commitment to limit the range of decisions
that may help the business to a much narrower set that adhere to the religion.
Sometimes strict open source is good for business. Often it is not.

As someone who in his younger years has bought quite a large number of "open
hardware" products, the software for which was always only barely usable, the
business model hypothetical, and therefore never went anywhere and now litter
the graveyard- I am _very_ happy for this team to be doing the right things
for the _business_.

It's a really good product, with a really bright future, and it also happens
to be pretty open and hackable.

Kind of best case, in my opinion.

Cheers.

~~~
skyfaller
I'd also like to push back on your cynicism about open hardware products. I
must admit that history is full of open hardware failures, like the adorable
Chumby (what went wrong?), but times have changed and I think you will find
that the open hardware is building significant momentum today, I'd encourage
you to take another look.

The purchase that turned me into an open hardware evangelist was the Planck EZ
mechanical keyboard: [https://ergodox-ez.com/pages/planck](https://ergodox-
ez.com/pages/planck)

It's a joy to use. The layers feature of the open QMK firmware blew my mind
and changed how I think about typing. The keyswitches take seconds to replace
so it's extremely easy to repair/maintain, which is great for the planet. It's
tiny and portable, which was perfect for my needs before the pandemic hit and
I stopped going outside. And perhaps most importantly, the company seems
pretty successful, they seem to be a competent business that is in it for the
long haul.

I am also very impressed with my Pinebook Pro:
[https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/](https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/)
The year of the Linux desktop may never come, but this shockingly cost-
effective open hardware laptop convinced me to quit Apple products after a
decade of loyalty. For my needs, which are mostly browsing the web, editing
code, and SSH-ing into servers, it's good enough for like 1/10 of the price.
I'll grant you that Pine64 is more of a hobbyist project than a business, but
it seems extremely successful on its own terms and seems sustainable despite
selling stuff basically at-cost.

I've now ordered a System76 Thelio desktop, also open hardware (although
closer to Apple prices, performance costs money I guess).
[https://system76.com/desktops](https://system76.com/desktops)

I don't say all of this to suggest that Remarkable is bad, it seems pretty
good. I'm just saying that it can be _better_ on open source software and
hardware, without it hurting the business or the product. It might even help.

------
wojciii
This is not a replacement.

I love my Kobo but tend to use my phone because I can buy books using the
Amazon android app. I hate the UI (both navigation and the suggestions on
which are never what I want to read next) but it works ok for buying books.

A replacement would be a book market place where I can buy DRM free books and
use clients on any ebook reader to download them to native format supported by
the reader. Wirelessly and without fear of someone keeping track of what I
read.

Kobos can be hacked to some extent, but no replacement firmware exists to my
knowledge. Their readers already run Linux but I'm sure that they don't
release drivers for their display or UI source code.

~~~
efreak
I really wish the publishers/distributors supported OPDS. Either add in a
user/password prompt that's not to speed, or just put tokens in the URLs. I'd
buy far more ebooks from any distributor willing to do this.

------
nine_k
Imagine an open-source iPod that won't have access to iTunes. It likely would
be a success, but not a replacement.

I see the power of Kindle in the ease of buying books. I see the device as a
storefront to Amazon's e-book collection.

To be more massively successful, such a device should come with access to a
sync service (or several), and access to e-book stores. IDK if Amazon has an
API for buying books, but definitely some e-book sellers with APIs exist.

And yes, of course it should allow uploading DRM-free books of your choice,
and maybe integrate nicely with Calibre.

The software part of the project looks much bugger and gnarlier than the
hardware part.

------
Markoff
who would want to read anything on 4.2" display?

I've had bigger (4.5") display in smartphone 8 years ago and I would not call
even that suitable for reading books

why is nobody discussing this and why they don't show the device in hand to
show how ridiculously small it is?

> Main features: > 4.2" inch e-paper display with partial refresh, driven over
> a dedicated SPI bus.

[https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-
Book](https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book)

~~~
efreak
I did all my (non-school) reading for my first half of college on a Nintendo
DSi, before I got a tablet. High resolution, large screen, good backlight,
fast display refresh rate--all of these improve the experience, but none of
them is required, and if you've never used them then all you know is _this is
so much better than reading on my laptop_. Sure, having a small screen is a
little frustrating, but having easy buttons to change pages makes up for it
(the DSi RL buttons were better than all tablets I've ever had) and once you
get into your reading, you stop noticing.

Tips:

\- set the background color as close as you can to the bezel color, and remove
the margins if you have a small screen \- Set the font size a little large if
you have a low resolution screen; antialiasing makes it much easier to read,
even if your screen is also small.

Tips if your device has a slow processor and little ram (I had all or most of
this automated at the time, through a batch file and a custom calibre
conversion profile)

\- resize or remove images. I stored mine alongside the book rather than in
it, saved as smaller 8bit PNG files. \- split your ebooks into multiple files
(~100kb/file without images allowed pages to load in <1/2 second) \- Make sure
the files in your epub are actually split by chapter (calibre can do this
automatically, I think) \- if you have control over file compression (I use a
script to generate epubs), don't use high compression--especially if there's
images.

~~~
Markoff
you are ruining your eyesight by using such small display/letters and fixed
focused distance, it may not look like that when you are young, but give it
few years and you will see results

4.2" is OK for temporary reading for very short periods, but ebooks are
usually used for long reading sessions and one would want to use it for years
before throwing away

------
catalogia
Is there any text-to-speech system that could run on hardware like this with
good results? I still use my old Kindle Keyboard with sideloaded books because
it has pretty decent text-to-speech (which Amazon removed from later
revisions.) I've tried some open source TTS systems like festival and could
never get any to work well enough to actually use (insufficient voice quality
to work at faster reading speeds.)

------
inetsee
My question is whether this device can download and read ebooks from Amazon? I
don't have a Kindle and the small number of Amazon ebooks I have (many of them
free), I read on Amazon's Reader page. My take on Amazon is they aren't going
to make it easy to bypass their controls, both DRM and otherwise.

~~~
kick
Calibre strips Amazon's DRM and most book reading software supports you
fetching books directly from Calibre.

~~~
input_sh
Note: not out of the box, but there's a plugin for that. Keywords that will
lead you to it: Apprentice Alf.

~~~
mmm_grayons
Is there some ban against linking drm strippers on HN? I've seen countless
links to scihub or to paywall bypasses on articles.

------
hardlianotion
Looking at the GitHub page, I like how the board appears to be laid out like
an equivalent of a literate program.

~~~
disposedtrolley
Yeah this stood out to me too! It costs nothing to add more silkscreen to the
PCB and it serves as an excellent learning tool.

------
mikece
If there is not a kick starter for this yet I hope there is soon. I would back
this immediately.

~~~
depressedCorgi
There isn’t a kickstarter but he does have a Patreon.

[https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo](https://www.patreon.com/joeycastillo)

------
fheld
previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246417)

