Originally Posted by Vennegoor:
“Kindle evangelists are unbelievable.”
<sigh>
I just got a Kindle from Santa.
If I could be bothered, we could have a nice natter about RMS, GNU, Doctorow, Linux, Creative Commons, Copyleft and all that jazz.
More than that though, I want authors to be paid. I want to be able to search cumbersome technical books. I want to sit in a comfy chair with a cup of tea and read stuff I've found on t'Internets. Or do the same on the train. I've got a huge physics book, 1000+ pages on there.
With Kindle DRM at least some money will get to modern authors, and let's not forget Amazon has brought lots of books to a wider audience than mainstream bookshops with their dire 3 for 2 stack 'em high promotions.
I love my paper books, and they're EMP-proof. I'll have to think whether I value reading more than physical tangibility for my fiction. I might try Iain Banks' Surface Detail on Kindle even though I've got the rest as paper.
It's like many things in life, a compromise. Sure, those books are licensed, but so are your three score years and ten on Earth.
Plus, if ever Amazon start the equivalent of large scale book burning, I think there'll be a backlash precisely because Kindle is popular enough that someone somewhere will be able to put up a fight and win, or crack the DRM.
Until that day comes though, I'll compromise, that's how progress is made.
PS I've discovered 'calibre' on my Linux machine. Excellent tool for converting stuff to MOBI for Kindle.