I just now (6Jul23) got an email from Apple indicating that Book submissions must be put through an ePub checker first. Their link leads to epubcheck-5.0.1, a Java application. Since I charge for some of my books on the bookstore does this mean I must pay Oracle for the use of Java?
pharmpk wrote:
I just now (6Jul23) got an email from Apple indicating that Book submissions must be put through an ePub checker first. Their link leads to epubcheck-5.0.1, a Java application. Since I charge for some of my books on the bookstore does this mean I must pay Oracle for the use of Java?
Folks here are either not lawyers, or not your lawyer. I am not a lawyer.
First off… There are probably other ePub validation tools.
If you do choose the Java path, read the Oracle (and possibly also Eclipse Temurin) licensing details. Oracle was charging for commercial use, and I’d assume the Oracle lawyers would assume your use here is commercial.
It also appears Oracle has changed the licensing (again) (with Java 17), and I’ve not waded through those changed details as yet:
… https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/jdk-faqs.html
Here’s a detailed write-up on the whole of the Oracle licensing:
The Eclipse Temurin packaging seems to be what you want: https://adoptium.net/ if you don’t want to pay Oracle. (But again, IANAL.)
pharmpk wrote:
I just now (6Jul23) got an email from Apple indicating that Book submissions must be put through an ePub checker first. Their link leads to epubcheck-5.0.1, a Java application. Since I charge for some of my books on the bookstore does this mean I must pay Oracle for the use of Java?
Folks here are either not lawyers, or not your lawyer. I am not a lawyer.
First off… There are probably other ePub validation tools.
If you do choose the Java path, read the Oracle (and possibly also Eclipse Temurin) licensing details. Oracle was charging for commercial use, and I’d assume the Oracle lawyers would assume your use here is commercial.
It also appears Oracle has changed the licensing (again) (with Java 17), and I’ve not waded through those changed details as yet:
… https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/jdk-faqs.html
Here’s a detailed write-up on the whole of the Oracle licensing:
The Eclipse Temurin packaging seems to be what you want: https://adoptium.net/ if you don’t want to pay Oracle. (But again, IANAL.)
Hi MrHoffman
From the email I received
"To ensure quality content, all files submitted to Apple Books must pass the latest version of EPUBCheck.
Prior to submitting to Apple Books, use EPUBCheck v5 to validate your content. EPUB 3 publications are checked against the EPUB 3.3 specification." it appears that Apple is requiring the use of EPUBCheck v5 which requires java and points to Oracle's java. IANAL either ;-) but it does look like Oracle would require some payment.
My main annoyance is with Apple dropping iBooks Producer which allowed me to include interactive widgets, using html5, css and js, and now potentially requiring this extra step. Looking at older (> 2 years) discussions it may be that using iTunes Connect/Producer (I've forgotten what I had to use a few weeks ago ;-) may do this ePub check which would be good.
Thanks for the Eclipse Temurin link. I downloaded it and tried to use EPUBCheck v5 with my latest book and got java errors (Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: io/mola/galimatias/GalimatiasParseException). I'm not a java coder so won't go down that path for now. My son is a long time java coder so may need to ask him about it...
It looks like I need to try updating and uploading a newer version of my book to see what happens. I thought maybe other authors had received this email from Apple and what thoughts and issues they may have.
Thanks again.
I’d guess CLASSPATH. With Java, it’s often either that, or insufficient run-time quotas. 🫣
ePub validation
