Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the developer, or the software, except as a happy user. Seriously, I just popped it open this morning to continue reading my current book, and on a lark,...
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the developer, or the software, except as a happy user. Seriously, I just popped it open this morning to continue reading my current book, and on a lark, I went off on one of those Internet scavenger/rabbit-hole searches, about the software ... and this is what I learned.
calibre is the go-to app for managing an ebook collection. It includes a reader, an editor, a format converter, cloud-based and syncing features, it is fully cross-platform, and fully open-source. It was created in 2006 by Kovid Goyal, and has been maintained and improved almost entirely by him ever since.
Kovid is Indian, lives in Mumbai, has a doctoral degree (!) in quantum computing (!!), from CalTech (!!!). His entire career, 20+ years, he has worked exclusively on open source development, and (at least appears to have) made his living entirely off of that work. Currently, as best I can tell, he receives roughly $2,000-2,500/month in steady donations for his open-source work from regular Patreons and other donation services. I assume there's an additional percentage of one-time donations that rolls in fairly regularly, and he probably (I hope) has other income streams, but that's all I can document online.
So, my spitball-guesstimate is that he earns ~$40k/year, which in Mumbai actually isn't bad at all (cost of living is ~50% of Milwaukee, average salary is <20% of Milwaukee ... thank you, Numbeo ). And maybe he is perfectly content with that ... except, if this same bit of software had been developed in Silicon Valley, bundled into the MacMicroGooBook world, he could, at the very least, have added another "0" to his annual income, quite possibly 2 "0"s, given the right marketing/monetization/IPO/yada strategy.
I have never donated any money to this guy/app/project, and I'm feeling a little guilty about that right now, so yeah, I'm (probably) gonna donate. And if you rely on the app as much as I do, maybe you should, too.
But that's not exactly my point. I bet I could do 15 minutes of research on any of a hundred other free apps I use, 90% of which I've never donated to, and discover similar--or probably even less-lucrative--stories.
F/LOSS (Free/Libre Open-Source Software) is a powerful philosophical counterpoint to the traditional Corporate business model, and most people do not go the F/LOSS route for the money ... but nevertheless ... hell, I don't know exactly what I'm asking or suggesting. Just feeling "thoughtsome", I suppose.
Sounds a lot like FSFE’s I Love Free Software Day campaign, which is about spreading some love for your favorite FOSS project(s) on Valentine’s day. On that note, it might be cool if Tildes had a...
Sounds a lot like FSFE’s I Love Free Software Day campaign, which is about spreading some love for your favorite FOSS project(s) on Valentine’s day.
On that note, it might be cool if Tildes had a similar weekly or monthly FOSS thread as it does for Gaming – what’s your FOSS pick of the month and why. Perhaps even write a pitch how anyone could best help it (code, bug triage, testing, donations, …). A more thorough analysis might be a better fit for a monthly format.
(disclaimer: I used to work for FSFE and was member of its General Assembly, but am neither any more)
You or anyone else similarly interested in doing so can always create a topic like that. And if it does well, a request can be made to make it official. That's how almost all the other recurring...
On that note, it might be cool if Tildes had a similar weekly or monthly FOSS thread as it does for Gaming – what’s your FOSS pick of the month and why.
You or anyone else similarly interested in doing so can always create a topic like that. And if it does well, a request can be made to make it official. That's how almost all the other recurring topics came about too.
Neat. @Eric_the_Cerise, would you do the honors to start a new thread? I’m currently swamped at work and with some additional projects. But happy to keep the ball rolling – I’ve got a few projects...
Neat. @Eric_the_Cerise, would you do the honors to start a new thread?
I’m currently swamped at work and with some additional projects. But happy to keep the ball rolling – I’ve got a few projects I’d love to get off my chest already.
I don't personally use calibre (prefer paper copies), but I love Kovid Goyal's terminal emulator, kitty. It's really impressive how much thought went into its design, e.g. this spec he wrote for...
I don't personally use calibre (prefer paper copies), but I love Kovid Goyal's terminal emulator, kitty. It's really impressive how much thought went into its design, e.g. this spec he wrote for its terminal graphics protocol. Truly a brilliant FOSS developer.
I really like Calibre. It's an essential tool for managing and converting ebooks. Nowadays I use it mainly to convert from epub to mobi for my Kindle. I understand it has many functions that are...
I really like Calibre. It's an essential tool for managing and converting ebooks. Nowadays I use it mainly to convert from epub to mobi for my Kindle. I understand it has many functions that are important for other users, but for my needs everything else gets in the way. To make anything with an ebook, Calibre first copies the file to its own folder structure, and now I have two copies of the file on my drive. I much rather manually organizing the files in my own folders, so that's just bothersome to me. I have no use for an ebooks database.
That's always annoyed the shit out of me too, since I prefer managing my own library organizational structure as well. But I got over it by just thinking of the Calibre Library as a backup copy of...
To make anything with an ebook, Calibre first copies the file to its own folder structure, and now I have two copies of the file on my drive.
That's always annoyed the shit out of me too, since I prefer managing my own library organizational structure as well. But I got over it by just thinking of the Calibre Library as a backup copy of my ebook files in case I ever lose the originals. :P
Honestly, the Calibre emailing function does seem useful but I never cared enough to make it work. I don't send that many books and my email is open 100% of the time, it's automatic for me. Edit:...
Honestly, the Calibre emailing function does seem useful but I never cared enough to make it work. I don't send that many books and my email is open 100% of the time, it's automatic for me.
Edit: Nowadays Amazon sends a follow up email to confirm so I guess I'll have to open my email at some point anyway.
Yeah, that mildly annoys me as well. I periodically delete ~/books/* to keep things under control a bit. Calibre complains a bit but gets over it. I don't particularly keep files around because I...
Yeah, that mildly annoys me as well. I periodically delete ~/books/* to keep things under control a bit. Calibre complains a bit but gets over it.
I don't particularly keep files around because I almost never re-read books and the ones I've bought in ebook format (I quite often buy print but download epubs) are re-downloadable if I need them. I'm not interested in doing anything other than moving the file to my Kobo and updating it's database so I can actually read the thing.
Calibre is a really good project but it's somewhat overkill for my needs and I do sometimes wonder if I could replace it with a small shell script.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the developer, or the software, except as a happy user. Seriously, I just popped it open this morning to continue reading my current book, and on a lark, I went off on one of those Internet scavenger/rabbit-hole searches, about the software ... and this is what I learned.
calibre is the go-to app for managing an ebook collection. It includes a reader, an editor, a format converter, cloud-based and syncing features, it is fully cross-platform, and fully open-source. It was created in 2006 by Kovid Goyal, and has been maintained and improved almost entirely by him ever since.
Kovid is Indian, lives in Mumbai, has a doctoral degree (!) in quantum computing (!!), from CalTech (!!!). His entire career, 20+ years, he has worked exclusively on open source development, and (at least appears to have) made his living entirely off of that work. Currently, as best I can tell, he receives roughly $2,000-2,500/month in steady donations for his open-source work from regular Patreons and other donation services. I assume there's an additional percentage of one-time donations that rolls in fairly regularly, and he probably (I hope) has other income streams, but that's all I can document online.
So, my spitball-guesstimate is that he earns ~$40k/year, which in Mumbai actually isn't bad at all (cost of living is ~50% of Milwaukee, average salary is <20% of Milwaukee ... thank you, Numbeo ). And maybe he is perfectly content with that ... except, if this same bit of software had been developed in Silicon Valley, bundled into the MacMicroGooBook world, he could, at the very least, have added another "0" to his annual income, quite possibly 2 "0"s, given the right marketing/monetization/IPO/yada strategy.
I have never donated any money to this guy/app/project, and I'm feeling a little guilty about that right now, so yeah, I'm (probably) gonna donate. And if you rely on the app as much as I do, maybe you should, too.
But that's not exactly my point. I bet I could do 15 minutes of research on any of a hundred other free apps I use, 90% of which I've never donated to, and discover similar--or probably even less-lucrative--stories.
F/LOSS (Free/Libre Open-Source Software) is a powerful philosophical counterpoint to the traditional Corporate business model, and most people do not go the F/LOSS route for the money ... but nevertheless ... hell, I don't know exactly what I'm asking or suggesting. Just feeling "thoughtsome", I suppose.
Sounds a lot like FSFE’s I Love Free Software Day campaign, which is about spreading some love for your favorite FOSS project(s) on Valentine’s day.
On that note, it might be cool if Tildes had a similar weekly or monthly FOSS thread as it does for Gaming – what’s your FOSS pick of the month and why. Perhaps even write a pitch how anyone could best help it (code, bug triage, testing, donations, …). A more thorough analysis might be a better fit for a monthly format.
(disclaimer: I used to work for FSFE and was member of its General Assembly, but am neither any more)
You or anyone else similarly interested in doing so can always create a topic like that. And if it does well, a request can be made to make it official. That's how almost all the other recurring topics came about too.
Neat. @Eric_the_Cerise, would you do the honors to start a new thread?
I’m currently swamped at work and with some additional projects. But happy to keep the ball rolling – I’ve got a few projects I’d love to get off my chest already.
I don't personally use calibre (prefer paper copies), but I love Kovid Goyal's terminal emulator, kitty. It's really impressive how much thought went into its design, e.g. this spec he wrote for its terminal graphics protocol. Truly a brilliant FOSS developer.
I've used Calibre for years and never donated. I just chucked him some money. I need to be better about supporting excellent FLOSS.
CalTech - Libre... Calibre..?
I pronounce it like Caliber, but I had the epiphany last week that it's probably supposed to be pronounced like Libre lol
When i had a kindle I was very much a fan of Calibre, so glad to see it's still up and running!
I really like Calibre. It's an essential tool for managing and converting ebooks. Nowadays I use it mainly to convert from epub to mobi for my Kindle. I understand it has many functions that are important for other users, but for my needs everything else gets in the way. To make anything with an ebook, Calibre first copies the file to its own folder structure, and now I have two copies of the file on my drive. I much rather manually organizing the files in my own folders, so that's just bothersome to me. I have no use for an ebooks database.
That's always annoyed the shit out of me too, since I prefer managing my own library organizational structure as well. But I got over it by just thinking of the Calibre Library as a backup copy of my ebook files in case I ever lose the originals. :P
p.s. Are you taking advantage of Calibre's "Send to Kindle (via Email)" function? It's a massive QoL feature that not many people seem to know about.
Honestly, the Calibre emailing function does seem useful but I never cared enough to make it work. I don't send that many books and my email is open 100% of the time, it's automatic for me.
Edit: Nowadays Amazon sends a follow up email to confirm so I guess I'll have to open my email at some point anyway.
Yeah, that mildly annoys me as well. I periodically delete ~/books/* to keep things under control a bit. Calibre complains a bit but gets over it.
I don't particularly keep files around because I almost never re-read books and the ones I've bought in ebook format (I quite often buy print but download epubs) are re-downloadable if I need them. I'm not interested in doing anything other than moving the file to my Kobo and updating it's database so I can actually read the thing.
Calibre is a really good project but it's somewhat overkill for my needs and I do sometimes wonder if I could replace it with a small shell script.