## Preface

Last night the finishing touches were placed on the Open eBook Publication Structure 1.0.1, a revision of the original specification which had as its purpose the task of clearing up ambiguities, fixing errors, and ensuring that the specification could continue to be useful as the Open eBook Forum produces new specifications for the eBook industry. As the original Open eBook Publication Structure 1.0 was produced by the Open eBook Authoring Group (most of whom now make up the new Open eBook Forum), this updated document is the first official specification to be released by the OEBF.

As chair of the maintenance subgroup of the publication structure working group (yes, the OEBF has a more complicated hierarchy than our original group of authors), I was responsible for overseeing the relatively easy task of updating and correcting the existing specification. As it turned out, even such minor changes are never straightforward, with such last-minute issues as corrupted logo image files. I cannot help but feel admiration (and some pity) for Gene Golovchinsky and Jerry Dunietz, who are supervising the development subgroup which is working towards the next major version of the OEB PS: Open eBook Publication Structure 2.0

Version 2.0 will certainly require a new "Understanding" book to be written, but the OEBF believes version 1.0.1 to be an unambiguous foundation on which to build today, a foundation that won't render content useless when new versions add new features. From the experience that version 1.0 has brought, it appears the OEB Authoring Group was correct in choosing its foundations: open, standards-based international specifications that can be used by all. It's my wish that this book will allow you to understand the steps you need to take to be one of those who use the specification for your next eBook.

Thanks to Horace Dediu, Dorothea Salo, Merv Matson and Roger Sperberg for all their help in reviewing and proofreading the early drafts. Thanks to Gunter Hille and David Ornstein for their support and encouragment. Scott Oaks and Henry Wong in their Java Threads (O'Reilly, 1999) provided excellent examples of using rhetorical questions in a tutorial. I'm grateful to Garth Conboy for introducing me to the very useful technical term, "Real Soon Now."

All diagrams in this book use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and were created using the MagicDraw UML modeling software.

Garret Wilson

President, GlobalMentor, Inc.

http://www.globalmentor.com

14 June 2001