“For instance, making a new release of Calibre for all its supported platforms, just involves me typing a single command into my development machine, and then waiting a couple of hours while it does all the work," he said. “These sources have been stable enough to allow me to work full time on Calibre for seven years and counting," said Goyal.ĭeveloping for three operating systems (Windows, Linux, and OS X) is not an easy task, but Goyal said he relies on automation. A big part of my motivation in dedicating the last decade of my life to Calibre has been to ensure that it remains possible for book lovers to read, collect, create and manage e-books on their own terms," said Goyal, in an e-mail.Ĭalibre has had contributions from over a hundred people but Goyal is the only full-time developer, who funds the development through donations and ads on the website, and this is his primary income source. “I have often said that reading is too important an activity to be left entirely in the hands of profit-needing corporations. He is interested in encouraging and enabling people to read and chose to return to Mumbai, his home town, in 2011 after completing his PhD. While the highest paying computing jobs these days involve helping companies figure out how to gain maximum dollars from advertising, selling things online or building social networking sites, Goyal’s aim is unusual. “I know around five of my friends who’ve bought a Kindle, including my mother, and they’ve all gotten used to Calibre." “It’s the first thing I downloaded when I bought a Kindle," said Arun Kandikonda, a sales professional based in Mysuru. For e-books, the equivalent is Calibre, a comprehensive free and open-source tool that you can use to manage your e-library, convert books to multiple formats, and news feeds to books. So, e-reader owners don’t just have to deal with condescending stares from print purists, but with the hassle of multiple e-book formats, and the question of how to read books they’ve bought legitimately on devices of their choice.įor digital music, which also deals with multiple format issues and large libraries, there are programmes like iTunes. The most popular e-book format, however, is e-pub, which the Kindle does not support. The most popular e-reader in the world is Amazon’s Kindle.
The problem that it solves for e-book users is simple, but fundamental.
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