this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
1031 points (99.2% liked)

Open Source

31737 readers
208 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

This is a complete reimagining of the Open Book Project, but the original mission remains:

As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading are closed objects, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners' interests are not always aligned with readers'.

The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book.

Check out the promo video as well:
https://youtu.be/vFD9V8Hh7Yg

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Rakuten Kobo is a good alternative to Amazon Kindle. I can just drag and drop books, no internet connectivity necessary, no DRM... I have no problems with it at all. Would be cool to be able to load custom firmware, but I do not need to since it already doesn't spy on me and doesn't force DRM (3rd party book imports).

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you installed nickelmenu and koreader? Brings the experience up a couple of levels software side.

[–] FederatedSaint 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can do this with a kindle, too. I'm not advocating for them specifically, just pointing out that you can use a Kindle in a similar way. I've never even enabled WiFi on it. Just drag and drop some epubs on it via USB once in a while. Works great, is cheap, and is waterproof.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can you do usb drag and drop for kindles? I always thought you need to send the book over to the special kindle email address.

[–] PeachMan 7 points 1 year ago

Calibre is how people do this. Install it on a PC or Mac, and it can easily send books to your Kindle and convert to the right format automatically.

But yes, you can also drag and drop to USB like you're asking. You just gotta make sure you drop on the right format (or use Calibre).

[–] FederatedSaint 3 points 1 year ago

Yep, it just mounts like an external USB drive and you can load it with epub files. Alternatively, you can use calibre that will handle your library on your computer and will detect and load what you want on the Kindle as you desire.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can. With jailbreak, I send books to it through ssh.

[–] finnie 3 points 1 year ago

I've been using kobo. The integration with pocket and Libby is the killer feature for me. Checking out library books right on the device? Game changer.

[–] trolololol 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's odd I buy many books from Kobo for my boox reader and most have DRM.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I was referring to books not bought through Kobo. Like they don't force you to use DRM, not that the device doesn't support DRM

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Some Kobo have a Lineageos port.