gitbook

> The format and toolchain itself is open-source (https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook)

All books are stored as git repositories so you get branching, history, etc ... out of the box. We have great GitHub integration because it's the main Git host out there, we store git repos too. If we shutdown, our toolchain and book format is already open source (https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook), so no matter what you'll always be able to use that to build your book locally. Secondly our Desktop Editor (https://www.gitbook.com/editor) works offline so you could even continue to use that. And well since your book is a git repo, you can have a local copy, a copy on GitHub or any other git server of your choice. So I think you should be good :) We don't believe in vendor lock, we're big supporters of open-source and we want users to use our tools and platform not because they're obliged to, but simply because it's the best workflow/pro

You also might want to take a look at GitBook (https://www.gitbook.com/). It supports both Markdown and AsciiDoc and is used by authors to write books, documentation, research-papers (GitBook has great TeX support, in all outputs: web, pdf, epub, mobi). (Here's a math heavy book for example: http://jandeleeuw.gitbooks.io/bras1/content/blockrelaxation/...) The format and toolchain itself is open-source (https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook) There's a ecosystem built on top of that such as a Desktop Editor (https://www.gitbook.com/editor), plugins (http://plugins.gitbook.com/), and more ... I don't want to hijack the current thread, Madoko seems really cool, I thought some of you might be interested in a more established solution. I'm happy to answer any questions ! Disclaimer: I'm one of the GitBook co-founders

Hi, Aaron from GitBook here. Thanks for the kind words! Yep, you might have seen the editor: https://www.gitbook.com/editor (the older version is on GitHub: https://github.com/GitbookIO/editor) I think the publishing/documentation/writing industries have yet to see the benefits of automation and better tooling. Writing should be simple and accessible. What we're trying to do is automate all the painful/boring parts so that writers can focus on what they do best: writing. I'm not surprised you had the same idea :) If you want to share your thoughts or talk, you can email me at: aaron AT gitbook DOT com And if you want to contribute to GitBook, our book format and toolchain is open source: https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook

Hi I'm Aaron, one of the GitBook co-founders checking in. You are giving great feedback and I'm more than happy to answer any questions you have. BTW, in case some of you missed it, we're a big believer in open-source, in fact our book format and toolchain is open: https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook This allows us to build better publishing tools together, no vendor lock-in and developers can build plugins to extend GitBook's features, here's a few: http://plugins.gitbook.com/.

GitBook co-founder here. We have a lot of non-english books actually: https://www.gitbook.com/explore, over a thousand in chinese alone. In the upcoming 2.0.0 release, we've further improved internationalisation: https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook/tree/master/theme/i18n We automatically detect your book's language (or you can specify itself) and so then the build chain can automatically use translations for menu entries etc ... if available in your language.