I'm still active in the "digitizing books" sector, albeit now officially employed at a library and more concerned with what we can do with the books after they're scanned :-)
I somehow thought that was illegal for residents of California, and IMHO should be illegal nationwide on general "not indentured servitude" grounds. Then again, I guess who wants to go up against Apple's legal team to find out
Rereading my previous comment, I realise that part of it could be misinterpreted. The diybookscanner project was wonderful to be part of, to contribute to.
One thing I realise was particularly impressive about diybookscanner.org was how much time you spent making it an environment friendly to broad experimentation and tinkering. Exploring broadly was absolutely necessary for a project like this. Mechanical triggering, the SDM experiments I had forgotten about, lighting, glass experiments, and more.
You sowed some powerful seeds. Your effort nursed diybookscanner.org into something that still speaks to the imagination of so many people. I feel privileged to have been part of that, and I'm more than happy to give you full credit.
Johannes (spreads) was one of the most inspiring people I've ever worked with, so thankful for the energy and intellect he brought to the project- and the software he built. I donated a pair of DSLRs to him as a thank-you. Last I heard he was still working in a related space, but at a higher level.
Personally, I left the project to join Apple (they refused to let me continue any work on the open- source project while I was employed there), and gave Jonathon (tenrec) control. He redesigned the scanner again and sold kits as well as produced a Raspberry Pi based controller with nice software. Seems he has closed the store.