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By David Rothman

Tower of BabelA recent IDPF announcement on e-book formats is helpful–but not nearly as important as the organization’s boosters would have you believe.

The group’s container for e-book files is apparently just a quick derivative of one for documents in the OpenDocument Format, and the real work needs to be done with the core format. Beyond that, DRM compatibility is a tricky issue regardless of what optimists may say to the contrary, and if past patterns prevail, the IDPF may either back off or take years to decide this matter. Check out a previous announcement where the IDPF crowd promised a consumer-level e-book format–before the group backed off. The date? 1998. Also note that Microsoft isn’t nearly as involved in IDPF as before. No one from Redmond is listed among those on the working group for the container format. Meanwhile Adobe, Microsoft’s arch rival, is an active particpant in the IDPF efforts.

eBook Technology Inc.‘s Garth Conboy and John Rivlin co-chair the container working group, while Garth, John Rivlin and Brady Duga, all from the ETI, co-chair the group dealing with the core format. I remain disappointed that standard setting is happening within IDPF–when it should be moved to a more mainstream standards groups with a wider variety of technical talent available. Is the e-book world really so strapped for talent that three people from one company should preside over the standards setting effort? The only non-ETI chair or cochair of these two crucial IDPF standards groups is Jonathan Hevenstone from Publishing Dimensions, a conversion house, who is now the vice chair of the working group for the core format.

Meanwhile, work on OpenReader will go on. In the interest of human and technological harmony, efforts will be made to stay as close as possible to the IDPF standards in situations where this will not hold back the technology. OSoft‘s dotReader will include the ability to read both OpenReader and whatever the IDPF cooks up–along with other formats. Let the marketplace decide.

Note: I’m a ringleader of OpenReader but am speaking only for myself. Jon may be along with other comments, which may or may not jibe with those above.

Related: Microsoft and e-book standards: The 1998 line and some well-meant but too-optimistic commentary from our friends at MobileRead.

Related: IDPF: Random House and Motricity reps win board seats, while accessibility boosters lose. Yes, accessibility for the disabled is among the criteria that standards setters should be considering, and I think it would be classy for the IDPF to require that at least one board member come from an accessibility-related organization.

 
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