On Jun 6, 2013, at 9:37 AM, "Alexandre Souza" <alexandre.tabajara at
gmail.com> wrote:
I still believe in Kindle. For me, it is a perfect
solution to a
paper-free world (which I don't want to live in, but sometimes is
good to have most of your techinical books and manuals in such a
small package!)
I don't think your belief in data preservation using the
Kindle is
well justified at all if the company you get your e-books from is
freely able to wipe your data. At the very least, I hope you didn't
buy your paper-free books from Amazon. See
http://stallman.org/amazon.html
Hmmm, all the material you sent me was unknown by me until now, and I think it deserves
a careful reading...Thanks for sharing!
I like the Kindle app on my phone for the convenience factor, but our
corporate overlords at Amazon have done some pretty objectionable
things. The most amusing/chilling episode I can recall (which RMS
doesn't mention in that article) was when they remotely deleted
copies of several Orwell books including 1984 from customers who had
paid for them. Legally, they were actually doing the correct thing
because the party that had submitted it to the Kindle store didn't
have distribution rights (we can get into the ethics of copyright law
elsewhere), but it was still rather ominous.
I mostly stick to the public domain versions of classic literature
that Amazon has up for free, and I didn't have to pay a dime for the
app on the phone. The only books I've paid for are electronic
editions of the Song of Ice and Fire series, because I don't plan on
buying the dead-tree version until it's done (or Martin dies) and I
can get a snazzy box set.
- Dave