
The Open Book Project - Tomte
https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book
======
krn
I personally prefer the decoupled model of the PC: buy any hardware, install
any OS.

At the moment, KOReader[1] runs on Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook, and many other
e-readers – and is completely open-source.

[1] [http://koreader.rocks/](http://koreader.rocks/)

~~~
wheybags
I use koreader on my Kobo Clara HD, but it's frustratingly "open sourcey". I
say that as an ardent FOSS enthusiast who runs Linux as his primary os. What I
mean by that is: bad ux, difficult to install, millions of super specific
options crowding out the ones you actually want, etc.

I still use it over the default kobo software, but I really wish it was
better.

------
Grumbledour
I really like the Idea.

Since I bought a reasonably open Kobo recently, I feel the main pain point
with eRaeders though is actually getting something to read on them. A dozen
stores with DRM exist and the few sites without DRM naturally have limited
selection. Also reading pdfs is really not great, yet converting them seems
also unreasonably hard. So the problems seems not to be the hardware only, but
the whole stack from hardware over software to content.

Still, an open eink device could be fun and can certainly be used for more
than just reading books.

~~~
olah_1
>the main pain point with eRaeders though is actually getting something to
read on them

Pretty sure Calibre gives you the ability to convert to open formats.

~~~
stoolpigeon
Calibre on its own will convert between formats and there are plugins that
will strip drm. I have no idea about the legality in various parts of the
world but it is a solid solution for liberating content and making it portable

~~~
jxdxbx
Yeah, but it can't usefully convert PDFs. To make a PDF usable on an e-reader
you've got to trim the margins, and chop it into pages that exactly fit the
e-reader screen (in landscape, due to line length issues)--and even then some
just can't be converted. And in doing this you need software that knows where
to cut pages and whether to insert padding so that lines don't get cut off.
And you never want to use OCR or text extraction, which suck. It's an
extremely difficult process, but since panning and zooming on ereaders is
unusable it's the only way I've found that works (I use the k2pdfopt
software)--the alternative is just using a tablet for PDFs which is what I
increasingly do.

~~~
olah_1
PDFs are already an open format and the software that you are looking for
would take 5 billion dollars of research money to produce. Every PDF is
formatted differently.

~~~
jxdxbx
k2pdfopt, which is free, works for almost every PDF.

------
the_biot
This takes on the wrong side of the closed e-reader problem, IMHO. There are
lots of top notch devices available for cheap, but they have closed software.
However they generally run Linux.

Making a custom kernel/distribution for existing devices would be a better way
to go. The Open Inkpot project tried this years ago, but never really got
anywhere.

It's low-hanging fruit though: compared to what projects like lineageOS are
doing, this is very doable.

And if this Open Book project ever gets usable hardware out, they'll _still_
have to take on the software side.

~~~
skykooler
KOReader seems to be exactly that.

------
mark_l_watson
Nice project. Not being a hardware person, I personally look at open source
and different data formats. I try to buy books directly from publishers who
provide Kindle, ePub, and PDF formats with purchases. The thought is awful of
losing my Amazon account and losing access to hundreds of audible book
purchases and I don’t know how many Kindle purchases. I try to spread my
closed platform purchases also to Google Play Books and iBooks to spread out
the risks but Amazon gets most of my business. I do like that my family gets
access to my Google Play books.

Really off topic and a little bit self serving to mention this: as an author,
I stopped publishing physical books because I like to be able to easily update
material and my eBooks are released under a Creative Commons license in three
file formats with no DRM. I encourage my readers to share my books.

------
gravypod
The most annoying thing about e-reader is the size of the devices. I wish
someone built a device with an A4 letter screen. This would make reading
scientific papers much easier.

~~~
sitkack
ReMarkable, Onyx, used Kindle DX.

------
mnemonicsloth
This should have been called The Open _eBook_ Project. Books and ebooks are
really not the same thing at all.

~~~
falcor84
>Books and ebooks are really not the same thing at all.

In what sense are they not? My first thought when hearing the word "book" is
of a particular template of contents and layout that could be instantiated on
paper or on a digital device; I guess I'm thinking of something like an ISBN,
rather than a specific physical artifact. And that's pretty much the same
concept that comes to mind when I hear "ebook".

What is the difference that you're thinking of?

EDIT: in other words, I suppose that my concept of a book is based on the
usual interpretation of the question "Have you read that book?"

------
mellowhype
Honestly, I don't see any relevancy in the statement of this project. Using
kindles and other ebook readerds for about 6 years and always asked to
recommend one, I've learned that ebook readers are one of the most realiable
devices ever built, so you'd better buy a used one and take it off the market
than produce yourself another devices honestly no one needs at the moment. A
lot of the people buying ebook readers usually end up ditching them just
because their 'reading hype' didn't catch on, or their company's read and roll
program (we have Bookster in Romania) is cheaper to use (as it's free) than
buying and converting books all the time.

But, ebook readers are cheap and easy to use (if bought used), even kindle's
amazon. Since you have a kindle e-mail address you can just use an app to
convert every non-kindle-format file into a compliant one, that's it if you
don't want to use Calibre via USB or WebServer. I use eBooker on my Android
phone.

~~~
p1esk
This is true. I still use occasionally a Kindle DX I bought in 2010. Sure the
battery lasts only for a couple of days now, and it has always been slow, but
it still works, and is a great reading device. It even still has free 3G
internet.

Though to be honest I much prefer my 12” ipad pro with high refresh rate for
reading papers.

------
xvilka
Makes sense to apply to the sponsorship, either through GitHub itself, with
its matching program, or through OpenCollective.

------
disease
LIke others are pointing out here, there seems to be bigger issues in the
__software __world of digital reading, while on the hardware front seems to be
OK.

Converting pdf files to epubs is unreliable and often just produces garbage.
Calibre may be open source but it seems to be controlled by just one person.
pdf2html seemed to be making some nice progress but now seems to be not
maintained any more.

In a perfect world we'd have completely open, maintained and well-known
conversion software and reader software. There doesn't seem to be a Linux or
Firefox in this category.

------
neuroticfish
I desperately want this. I've been looking for something open source like this
since I bought my first Kindle.

------
mackrevinack
what I'm looking for at the moment is an ereader that I can install syncthing
on so I can easily add or remove books at any time from my other devices.
having to plug in to another computer and manually sync with calibre or
whatever is a bit of a pain.

a few people have got it running on the kobo but the install process seems a
bit tricky. there's also the option of using an android based eink and then
maybe sideloading the syncthing apk.

the other thing I like about this idea is that i could continue reading a book
on my phone or computer if I was really stuck, or if I forgot to charge my
ereader... which I do quite a lot

------
dmccunney
I think I admire the energy and dedication behind this, but I can't see
getting one.

I've been involved with eBooks for over 15 years. It began when my then
employer decided all IT staff members should have PDAs. A Handspring Visor
Deluxe running Palm OS 3.1 appeared on my desk. I started looking for stuff
that would assist in my work as a Sysadmin.

An early discovery was Plucker - a desktop program and Palm client. Plucker
was designed to spider websites, and convert what it grabbed into something
that could be viewed on the Palm device. A good deal of the documentation for
stuff I dealt with was in HTML, and Plucker desktop could convert locally
stored HTML files to versions viewable on the PDA. I could carry a
documentation library in my pocket.

It was a hop, skip, and jump to realizing I could read other things as well,
and a good bit of Project Gutenberg and other things issued under licenses
that permitted it joined the party. (I still have about 4K converted Plucker
documents in a 7Z archive.)

While I still have a working PDA, the next step was a 7" Android tablet. A
variety of eBook viewers for Android existed. My choice was the open source
FBReader for Android. I had previously used a version of FBReader written in C
under Windows and Linux. FBReader for Android was a Java port, but worked
pretty much the same was. The win for FBReader was multiple format support. I
prefer ePub, but FBReader can display Mobi, FB2, and a few other things
native, and display PDFs, DjVu files, and CBR/CBZ files using plugins.
Effectively, I didn't have to _care_ what format a book was in. On the old
PDA, I could read a variety of formats too, but each had a dedicated viewer
app, and I had to remember which book was in which format displayed by what
program. FBReader on Android was a breath of fresh air.

I do _not_ use eInk devices. I understand the advantages - they are battery
friendly, and viewable out of doors. But too much of the content I read
requires color support. A color LCD screen is a _requirement_.

I also need a device that can do other things besides display eBooks. There
are limits to what I want to carry around when traveling. I already take a
laptop and a cell phone. A device that displays eBooks, but can do other
things in a pinch like check email, Look Stuff Up, or display MS Office files
is a major plus. (I do not use a phone for that. The stuff I tend to view
needs a larger screen size than a practical phone can have.)

And while I prefer open source, I am not wedded to it. I will cheerfully pay
for closed source software if there isn't an open source offering that does
whatever I require, or there is, but the closed source version is simply
_better_. (And a major part of "better" is UX. Open source software tends to
have less than optimal user interfaces. The folks who wrote the programs wrote
good code for performing the function, but are not UX designers.) I feel the
same about open source hardware.

This is a worthy effort, and I wish it all success, but I think it appeals to
a rather small niche market. Amazon, Kobo, and the like are not exactly
threatened. ______ Dennis

