On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:21:37AM -0400, Scott wrote:
>
> Another possibility might have been that until recently, there was no
> Kindle for Linux, though OS X and Windows had a Kindle app, enabling you
> to buy the Kindle edition without owning a Kindle. However, as of very
> recently (early August, I think) Amazon released the Kindle Cloud
> reader, which works in Chrome or Safari. I believe the idea was to
> get around Apple being Apple, wanting something like 30 percent of
> anything sold through its Kindle App store.
>
>
> https://read.amazon.com/about
For those who do own a Kindle, but want to either convert their
purchased ebook to another format, or read it in Amazon's azw format,
there is also the wonderful program Calibre.
http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux
As the author mentions, in most cases, a distro's version is broken or
buggy. One is better off getting it directly from the site. I've found
it useful enough to inspire me to donate a small amount.
As for Amazon locking you into their Kindle format, I believe they tried
to be more opensource about it but the publishers wouldn't let them.
As for avoiding companies that lock you in, it's not always practical,
for a variety of reasons.
As for Linux's target audience these days, that's a good question. My
own arrogant opinion is that these days, the big distros are all
targeting the less experienced desktop user. The upside is that more
vendors are aware of Linux and providing support. The downside is
Fedora putting in all these things for the desktop user that make it to
RedHat, and which lessen RH's effectiveness as a server.
I think in the old days, the sysadmins and developers were often the
same people. Judging from a lot of things being developed today, it
seems that the new crop of developers are smart phone users. (That
goes for MS and Apple too--Lion and Windows 8 seemed aimed at the
smartphone user.)
--
Scott Robbins
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