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Starting today, Microsoft is ending all ebook sales in its Microsoft Store for Windows PCs. "Previously purchased ebooks will be removed from users' libraries in early July," reports The Verge. "Even free ones will be deleted. The company will offer full refunds to users for any books they've purchased or preordered." From the report: Microsoft's "official reason," according to ZDNet, is that this move is part of a strategy to help streamline the focus of the Microsoft Store. It seems that the company no longer has an interest in trying to compete with Amazon, Apple Books, and Google Play Books. It's a bit hard to imagine why anyone would go with Microsoft over those options anyway.

If you have purchased ebooks from Microsoft, you can continue accessing them through the Edge browser until everything vanishes in July. After that, customers can expect to automatically receive a refund. According to a newly published Microsoft Store FAQ, "refund processing for eligible customers start rolling out automatically in early July 2019 to your original payment method." If your original payment method is no longer valid (or if you used a gift card), you'll receive a credit back to your Microsoft account to use online at the Microsoft Store. Microsoft will also offer an additional $25 credit (to your Microsoft account) if you annotated or marked up any ebook that you purchased from the Microsoft Store prior to today, April 2nd. Liliputing reminds us that "if you pay for eBooks, music, movies, video games, or any other content from a store that uses DRM, then you aren't really buying those digital items so much as paying a license fee for the rights to access them... a right that can be revoked if the company decides to remove a title from your device unexpectedly or if a company shuts down a server that would normally handle the digital rights management features."

You can find DRM-free eBooks at some online stores including Smashwords and Kobo (by browsing the DRM-free selection), or from publisher websites including Angry Robot, and Baen.

Robotech_Master writes "For a long time, A Fire Upon the Deep has been one of my favorite books. Combining interesting technological prognostication, fascinating concepts, amusing characters, and an enthralling story, this novel brings together science fiction and present-day science fact in a deeply compelling read. For a long time, this book had been available in electronic form from Palm Digital Media, and it was the first e-book I ever bought for my Palm PDA. Recently a new 'special edition' of the book was published electronically, containing the annotations that had previously only been available on the 1993 Hugo/Nebula CDROM, and I knew I had to make the purchase--and then, since I couldn't dig up any other mention of it on Slashdot, review it." Robotech Master warns that his (lengthy) review below of the updated version "contains some minor spoilers for plot, but not for ending." A Fire Upon the Deep: Special Edition author Vernor Vinge pages file size: 1016K publisher Tom Doherty Associates/Palm Digital Media rating 10 out of 10 for quality; 7 out of 10 for format reviewer Christopher E. Meadows ISBN 0312703694 summary As rumors fly on the galactic netnews network, a desperate expedition races to a barbarian planet to rescue the children who might hold the key to saving the universe.

The Novel It would not be exaggeration to call A Fire Upon the Deep one of the seminal SF novels of the digital age. While there had been many other books that depicted computer networks of the future, Fire was one of the first to present such a network in terms of its resemblance to USENET of the then-present-day.

A Fire Upon the Deep is set 38,000 years in the future on the outskirts of the galactic rim of the Milky Way. The galaxy is divided into several Zones of Thought, ranging from the Transcend on the farthest outskirts of the galaxy to the High and Low Beyond, the Slow Zone, and the Unthinking Depths at the galactic core.

Outside the galaxy, in the Transcend, lurk the superintelligent beings who have, well, Transcended--passed beyond normal mortal intelligence and become as unfathomable to normal humanity as we must be to animals. As one moves toward the center of the galaxy, the efficiency of thought--both biological and mechanical--decreases, as does the ability to travel faster than light. In the Slow Zone, FTL travel and data transmission is impossible, and the laws of physics limit travel to ramscoop speeds--and in the Unthinking Depths, even rational thought itself fades away. As one might imagine, most of the "civilized" races of the galaxy are found in the Beyond, between the Slow Zone and the Transcend. Here is where one small branch of humanity has found its way out of the Slow Zone and settled worlds named Sjandra Kei and the Straumli Realm.

And here is also where our story is set. In the opening pages of A Fire Upon the Deep, an ancient horror is revived by an incautious expedition of Straumli archaeologist-programmers investigating a long-lost treasure-trove just over the border of the Transcend. As the horror reaches out to take over civilization after civilization within the Beyond, it soon becomes clear that the only hope for the survival of independent thought in the Beyond lies with a makeshift space vessel that fled to a small uncharted planet in the low Beyond. This vessel, carrying a family of archaeologist-programmers and a cargo of cryogenically-hibernating children who were the only survivors of the Straumli catastrophe, holds the key to defeating the mysterious Blight.

Unfortunately, the parents of the family died soon after their arrival, and the two children ended up in the custody of rival barbarian forces: 14-year-old Johanna Olsndot with Woodcarver, a benevolent queen of a realm of learning and freedom; 7-year-old Jefri with the murderous tyrant Steel. And the expedition to rescue them, consisting of humans Ravna Bergsndot and Pham Nuwen, and Skrode Riders Blueshell and Greenstalk, has problems of its own. The story unfolds from multiple viewpoints and multiple settings which grow closer together as the story draws to its inevitable conclusion.

One of the primary features of the Zones of Thought setting is the Known Net, the data network that connects all the civilized races of the Beyond and the Transcend. Although information technology out in these realms has progressed into true artificial intelligence, with all the technological advancement that implies, the nature of the FTL transmission method means that the network itself operates at bandwidth rates similar to those found in USENET circa 1990--meaning that, for most forms of long-distance communication, text (or its equivalent) is the order of the day for the transmission of the message--but then language transmission and filtration can be performed on the receiving end. (And when hundreds of civilizations are sharing the same data network, posting hundreds of millions of messages a day, both translation and filtration suddenly become very necessary.)

Setting this hard bandwidth limit was one of Vinge's ways of future-proofing the story, as well as making necessary the sort of USENET-like communication upon which a large part of the story depends--stripping the speed of communication down to the bare bones so that every bit counts. "Somewhere should make clear to the undiscerning reader that we can't have gosh-wow 1990 LAN stuff on the Known Net because of bandwidth and transmission delay problems," reads note 1160. With a USENET-style network in place, Vinge is free to homage the USENET of today (or, rather, of 1990) in subtle ways.

For example, one of the commonly-recurring themes throughout the book is that of identity and truth. One of the ways this theme is explored should be only too familiar to most Slashdot readers: the net is often called the Net of a Million Lies. Just as "on the Internet, no one can tell if you're a dog," on the Known Net nobody can tell what race you really are--only the one you say you are. Interspersed through the story are about a dozen USENET-style netnews posts, from sources considered reliable, questionable, or outright mysterious, asking (and trying to answer) many questions: are humans tools of the ravening Blight? Are they innocent dupes? Should they be wiped out? Who is the Blight? What does it want? What is really going on? Many conflicting and unexplained viewpoints are presented, and sorting out the truth is an important part of the story. (I have heard rumors that some of these posts were written based on the posting styles of well-known USENET kooks of the day, but the annotations failed to provide any proof of this.)

Vinge also makes a few cute little digs that only a net-user might get--such as when he refers to "chronic theorizers [as being] the sort of civilizations that get surcharged by newsgroup automation," when he names the starship in which our heroes travel the Out of Band II, or when he implies, via having translation programs work less efficiently the closer to the Slow Zone the starship approaches, that some of those strange, semi-intelligible posts that show up on USENET today might simply be the fault of a faulty translator. (The notes reveal that he considered using some even more familiar net slang, such as "IMHO," but decided against it.)

One of the other interesting elements of the story is the alien race, the Tines, with whom Johanna and Jefri are stranded. The Tines are pack creatures, something like a cross between a wolf and a seal, who communicate among themselves using ultrasonic frequencies. Instead of being a personality in a single body, the personality of these Tines is spread across multiple members, and can change when members die or join. The concept behind these beings is fascinating to me, and I would like to read more stories involving them.

The story of A Fire Upon the Deep is told from multiple viewpoints, switching back and forth from Tines' World to Out of Band II at a rapid enough pace to keep tensions high and prevent things from getting too confusing (though there are still subtleties that didn't come out for me until several rereads). At the root, it's a rollicking USENET-informed space opera crossed with a bit of Swiss Family Robinson and a dogs-and-their-boy story. If I have one minor complaint about it, it is that most of the alien races seen in the story -- whether it's the group-mind Tines, the Transcended Powers, or even the Blight -- seem, with one or two exceptions, to have altogether too human a viewpoint. (Though Vinge does point out in the notes that the ones who don't have that kind of viewpoint probably wouldn't have much to do with those who did anyway.) But as quibbles go, that one is so low on the scale that it hardly even registers. If you haven't read this book, go out and get it right away--or stay right where you are and order it from Palm Digital Media (see my comments on format below). You won't be disappointed.

Introduction and Annotations The annotations in the back of the book are not the only reason to buy this book, of course. There is also a fairly lengthy introduction that goes into the history of the annotated version of the book, and into prognostications about what the future of prose might be. Since A Fire Upon the Deep was written several years before the wide advent of HTML, the story itself centers on USENET as the galactic communication medium...but the introduction was written just as HTML and hypertext were starting to get wider exposure, and Vinge seemed to think that hypertext was the future of fiction. "I believe hypertext fiction will ultimately be a new art form," Vinge wrote, "as different from novels as motion pictures are from oil paintings." Vinge has left this 1993 introduction much the same as when he originally wrote it, even though his predictions have not yet shown much sign of coming to pass.

Calling this special edition of A Fire Upon the Deep "annotated" is really a slight misnomer; for a book to be "annotated" (as in The Annotated Alice) usually means that someone has gone through it after the fact, adding clarifying comments that expand the reader's understanding. That is mostly not the case here.

These annotations are not notes to add explanations (save for a very few that Vinge added in after the fact for that purpose); they are short, often cryptic notes from Vinge to himself (just as a programmer comments his code to remind himself what he's written and why), or from some of the consultants who helped Vinge thrash out the story, pointing out awkward phrases, words that should be (or have been) spell-checked, mathematical and astronomical calculations (how large and close the Tines' moon needs to be to provide months of a certain length, for instance), inconsistencies, problems that need clarification, possibilities for sequels, text fragments that did not make the final cut, and story ideas. And there are quite a few of them--going by the progress bar on the reader, the notes section is about 150% of the length of the story section.

Because these notes were made at different points during the drafting process, it is not unusual for them to refer to entirely different parts of the book--a note several chapters in talking about the ending, or a note 3/4 of the way through the book suggesting that it might be a great idea if Ravna actually came from Sjandra Kei (which was revealed as soon as we first met her in the story itself). And some of the notes cryptically refer to characters or events no longer even present in the text. This being the case, readers new to this story are strongly advised to read the book straight through at least once before venturing into the annotations at all, because otherwise some major revelations will be spoiled.

If you're expecting great insights in these notes...well, there are some--into how Vinge writes, as well as into the story itself. But the notes are far more often cryptic or even meaningless, so don't be disappointed if they aren't all you'd hoped for.

Some of the notes are quite funny, such as one of Vinge's consultants' complaint about the use of the term "member" for an individual animal in Tine packs. "Except for what the Victorians did with 'member,' this term seems perfect," Vinge replied. "Suggestions?" The consultant backed down and said, "It's okay as long as you don't use it for anything else."

There is also a noteworthy footnote from Vinge regarding a cascade failure of interconnected computer systems:

"Ug. Unfortunately, in 1992 how many people would believe that such apparently unconnected failures are reasonable? There'll be a period of time where this may seem incredible. (And then after 1996 or so, maybe it'll just be a cliche of the everyday news.)"

He might have been off by a year or two, but an argument could still be made that he nearly predicted the Y2K scare.

The Format

The annotated version of A Fire Upon the Deep has an interesting history. The annotations were, of course, created by Vinge as part of the process of writing the book itself. In 1993, Brad Templeton of ClariNet suggested including them on a special Hugo/Nebula Award CD-ROM he was preparing--and so they were, along with a couple of illustrations and a low-resolution Quicktime or AVI movie. The movie was a brief recording of Vernor Vinge himself saying hello (and revealing in so doing that his name actually rhymes with "Benji," not "hinge"), and that he wondered what future entities would think when they viewed this time capsule from the dawn of the digital age. (However, because the CD-ROM has since become as rare as hen's teeth, the likeliest answer is "not much.") What's more, since this CD was made while HTML was still catching on as a hypertext format, the novel and annotations were made available in the form of separate rich text files for each chapter and each chapter's worth of annotations, a Hypercard stack, or--get this--a Windows 3.1 Help file. Imagine reading a 1.5 megabyte book in Windows Help.

Ten years later, the Hugo/Nebula CD-ROM has vanished into near-total obscurity. Meanwhile, HTML has become the pre-eminent form of hypertext, and the e-book has come into its own as the reading format of choice for many technophiles. In fact, the un-annotated A Fire Upon the Deep was one of the first titles offered by Palm Digital Media, back when it was known as Peanut Press. And now that the technology has evolved, Vernor Vinge has re-released the annotated version of the novel as a Palm Digital Media format e-book.

It would have been nice to have A Fire Upon the Deep in open HTML like Baen's e-books, but it is understandable that Dr. Vinge (or his publisher) might have preferred for the book to be digitally protected. Since that is unlikely to change anytime soon, there is little point to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good; as digitally-protected e-book formats go, the PDM format is actually quite decent. Free reader software is available for the Palm, PocketPC, Macintosh, and Windows platforms (and the Windows version also runs flawlessly under WINE on Linux).

A Palm Digital Media e-book is a hypertext document that supports text formatting (as with bold, italics, and differently-sized fonts), low-resolution images, and links from one part of the document to another (most often used for footnotes or annotations). DRM is simple and nonintrusive, consisting of entering name and credit card number into the reader software the first time the book is loaded. Thereafter, the book can be loaded immediately, and always opens to the page on which it was closed. The DRM is not tied to any particular device, so a book can be unlocked on as many different computers or PDAs as its purchaser desires to use simultaneously.

For the most part, A Fire Upon the Deep is easy enough to read in this Palm Reader format. However, there are some small things that take away from the reading experience. The most obvious comes from the way the links to the annotations are provided. In the text, these links are essentially centered between two paragraphs, separated by paragraph breaks, like so:

Note 423

Sometimes there are two or three or more of these links in a row. When reading from a computer screen, this is not too distracting--and it is certainly easier than looking for the link inside a paragraph--but on the much smaller screen of a PDA, it can substantially cut down on the amount of actual story text on the screen at one time (especially at larger font sizes).

The other thing is that flipping back and forth from footnotes to text can be extremely distracting to following the thread of the story, especially when reading from a PDA (and particularly when many of those footnotes turn out to be things like "Checked spelling of 'worldwide'"). After a while, I started reading a whole chapter or two at a time, then flipping to the footnote section and reading its annotations -- flipping back to the text if I was confused about how a note applied. (The bookmarking function of the Palm Reader helped in this, too.) On my computer, I also experimented with opening two different Palm Reader windows, one for the text and one for the annotations, and placing them side by side -- but in order to do this, I had to make and rename another copy of the e-book because one e-book can only be opened in one Palm Reader window at a time. It was a bit awkward ... but then again, so is watching a movie with director commentary on, sometimes.

Aside from the annotations, there are a couple of minor differences between print and e-editions that do not affect the reading experience quite so much. For example, the Palm e-books do not include the map of the Zones of Thought and the Out of Band II's course that is in the tree-book editions, nor do they have the Vinge-drawn sketch of Jefri Olsndot and Flenser that was on the Hugo/Nebula CDROM. While regrettable, this is also understandable; line art does not reproduce well at lower resolutions, and would also make an already large file even larger.

Another departure from the print book has to do with fonts. At several points in the book, USENET-style netnews posts appear. As noted in the annotations, Vinge requested that they be printed in a courier-style monospace font to set them apart from the rest of the story. In the print version, this was done; however, in the e-versions they are simply block indented. Although the Palm Reader does have a monospace font that could have been used here, presumably it would have been hard enough to read on a small PDA screen that the formatter decided to go with indentation instead. While this is also an understandable decision, the slight indentation and the interspersed footnote links sometimes make it hard to tell whether one is still reading netnews post or story text.

Conclusion A Fire Upon the Deep is one of the best works of net-related science fiction ever written, in either its annotated or unannotated versions. Either edition would be worth buying from Palm Digital Media (or Fictionwise, who also carries it), or from your favorite print bookseller if you don't care about the annotations. (For a number of reasons, I don't expect the annotated version to be published as a tree-book any time soon.)

At PDM, the annotated version costs $8.96, whereas the non-annotated version is $4.49. The question is whether the annotations justify spending an extra $4.47.

In my opinion, for someone who just wants to read an excellent science-fiction story and doesn't care about what went on behind the curtain, the less-expensive version would be sufficient. But for the reader who is interested in the background material, the annotated version is well worth the extra money.

If reading on a palm isn't appealing, you can also purchase the paper version of A Fire Upon the Deep from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Tonight's Slashback arrives with updates on disappeared Intel contractor Mike Hawash, free Baen books, a new link for comparing space ship sizes, and more. Read on below for the details.

Yes, charges are nice after six weeks of unexplained incarceration. purdue_thor writes "The various news agencies (CNN, FoxNews) are reporting that after being held for six weeks, software engineer Mike Hawash has finally been charged. His detainment as a material witness and subsequent incarceration without formal charges was discussed previously on /. Friends of Mike Hawash have created a website to publicize his case and have released a statement regarding the charges."

Randolpho adds "The Free Mike Hawash website has released the following affidavit (PDF file) received from the Federal Terrorism Task Force. The affidavit states that Hawash traveled to China in 2001 with several co-conspirators 'in an attempt to enter Afghanistan to fight against United States forces.'"

This just in from the cork-topped bottle. danny writes "One of the disadvantages of living in Australia is that my review copies arrive late. But my review of Google Hacks may be of interest, even after honestpuck's earlier review."

Free as in books. Author John F.X. Sundman writes: "PDFs of the complete Acts of the Apostles and Cheap Complex Devices are available for free download from wetmachine.com under the Creative Commons license."

And Robotech_Master writes "Remember the Honor Harrington CD-ROM, which Baen packaged with its most recent Honor Harrington book? The one that included over three dozen e-books and came with explicit permission to copy and share but not sell?

Well, Baen's done it again. The new CD comes with the fourth book in John Ringo's Aldenata trilogy, Hell's Faire . It includes still more free e-books, mp3s, and even a D20 Aldenata roleplaying game in electronic form. The book hits the stands this month, and the ISO is already available on-line. (Scarywater guy, please take note. :) Download it, burn it, give it to your friends...or buy the book and support one of the most Internet-clueful publishers out there today."

Free as in "you pay money." An anonymous reader submits "The original Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, was first a book, then a radio series. Adams edited both. All 7 hrs and 30 minutes of the Radio series have been released by the BBC in MP3 CD format. If you only caught the TV series this is a must."

I wish more audio books would arrive like this (compressed, so as to occupy fewer disks), though I'd choose a better method of audio compression ;) If you want to hear the HHGttG, though, a few minutes on Google will probably turn up some fan sites with recordings from the BBC broadcasts. (innocent whistling)

Yeah, but there's no Epcot Center. Sacarino writes "Las Vegas is *almost* on par with Disney now. The regularly-updated Monorail Society website has tons of pictures of the progress. Vegas' monorails are the same type as Disney's (Bombardier Mark VI), only with inwardly opening doors... slick! Also mentions the old MGM-Bally's monorail that's getting absorbed into the new automated network."

Is this what Microsoft thinks of viral licensing? Vagary writes "One of my friends just got a Microsoft router and asked me to check the security features for it. The ping denial doesn't work, which is good because a port scan found some pretty interesting things, including this string in the TCP/IP fingerprint: 'i586-pc-linux-gnu'. Does that mean Microsoft must provide Linux source to purchasers of this product?"

Can anyone confirm, deny or explain this interesting claim?

Click here to discuss the size of a fictional spacecraft ... photozz writes "The infamously slashdotted site comparing the relative sizes of several hundred starships from various Sci-Fi series has been mirrored to a somewhat more robust server. So cool. It's in draggable format, so you can put King Kong on top of Deep Space 9 and re-create a dream I had last night......."

Slashback tonight brings you yet another handful of updates and amplifications to previously posted stories, including some naysaying to Lessig's idea of the spectrum as commons, more free books from Baen, and the European answer to GPS. Read on for the details.

Sir, you just need to trust us. geekee writes "An article on CNN claims that the proposed passenger-screening system for air travelers is much more innocuous than previously claimed. Now it is claimed that the Transportation Security Administration "will not view credit records, traffic violations or other personal data", according to Admiral James Loy. He also claims records of travel will not be maintained. "Airline reservation agents would provide a traveler's name, address, phone number, date of birth, and travel plans to the TSA, which would then check that information against a variety of commercial databases and an FBI watch list.", according to TSA spokeperson Heather Rosenker."

Thinking of the children means more than hiding their eyes. Jim Tyre writes: "You pointed out that my censorware.net piece ["CIPA Before the Supreme Court"] provided a nifty link to where the official supreme court oral argument transcript would be when available online. It's now available."

What's good for the mercantilists ... wait, no doesn't have the same ring. Lawrence Lessig says that the current radio spectrum is vastly underutilized, and that new technology can extract much more use from it, creating a true radio commons. Zo writes to point out that many Salon readers disagree: "Radio waves, bandwidth, the spectrum. . .Don't we know *anything* for sure?

Sir, these books smell fine ... what's the catch? silentbozo writes "Avid Slashdotters will remember the Baen Free Library, which puts up free web versions of Baen titles for ANYONE to download and read without having to mess around with encryption and DRM. They went a step further with this experiment last fall with the release of David Weber's War of Honor which had a bunch of novels in html, rtf, doc, palmdoc, and othe formats on CD (bound into the hardcover), which you could copy and give away to anyone. Well, they're at it again. In May, they'll have another CD for those of you who didn't get War of Honor, bound into John Ringo's Hell's Faire.

I got hooked reading John Ringo's books after browsing through my copy of the War of Honor CD... and it's a great way of catching up on the previous books in the series. Hell's Faire looks really good - I personally am looking forward to finding out what happens to the O'Neals as they fight the Posleen on Earth, and to the crew of Bun-Bun... Eat anti-matter Posleen-boy!"

As secure as ... well, you pick. Anthanos writes "pGina [http://pgina.xpasystems.com], a modular authentication framework for Windows, has come a long way since it was last noted on /. nearly a year ago. Since then a full-fledged LDAP plugin, PAM plugin, and chaining have all become part of the feature set. The kicker is the recently released Slashdot plugin, which allows authentication of Windows clients with... yup you guessed it, Slashdot Accounts! XPA Systems has even begun offering services revolving around this GPL product. Seems this may be the solution for people looking to merge authentication of Windows clients with MacOSX, Solaris, and other *nix boxen."

Let's see a handheld that uses both, please ... Mattias Östergren writes "Well aware of the risks with dependency of GPS the European Space Agency (ESA) have developed their own satellite navigation system, EGNOS. EGNOS is more accurate than GPS and the signal also tell you how much it could be off.

The first reference station have just been installed on the roof of the Land Survey in Gävle, Sweden. There is a Swedish press release about it."

Slashback tonight brings you yet another handful of updates and amplifications to previously posted stories, including some naysaying to Lessig's idea of the spectrum as commons, more free books from Baen, and the European answer to GPS. Read on for the details.

Sir, you just need to trust us. geekee writes "An article on CNN claims that the proposed passenger-screening system for air travelers is much more innocuous than previously claimed. Now it is claimed that the Transportation Security Administration "will not view credit records, traffic violations or other personal data", according to Admiral James Loy. He also claims records of travel will not be maintained. "Airline reservation agents would provide a traveler's name, address, phone number, date of birth, and travel plans to the TSA, which would then check that information against a variety of commercial databases and an FBI watch list.", according to TSA spokeperson Heather Rosenker."

Thinking of the children means more than hiding their eyes. Jim Tyre writes: "You pointed out that my censorware.net piece ["CIPA Before the Supreme Court"] provided a nifty link to where the official supreme court oral argument transcript would be when available online. It's now available."

What's good for the mercantilists ... wait, no doesn't have the same ring. Lawrence Lessig says that the current radio spectrum is vastly underutilized, and that new technology can extract much more use from it, creating a true radio commons. Zo writes to point out that many Salon readers disagree: "Radio waves, bandwidth, the spectrum. . .Don't we know *anything* for sure?

Sir, these books smell fine ... what's the catch? silentbozo writes "Avid Slashdotters will remember the Baen Free Library, which puts up free web versions of Baen titles for ANYONE to download and read without having to mess around with encryption and DRM. They went a step further with this experiment last fall with the release of David Weber's War of Honor which had a bunch of novels in html, rtf, doc, palmdoc, and othe formats on CD (bound into the hardcover), which you could copy and give away to anyone. Well, they're at it again. In May, they'll have another CD for those of you who didn't get War of Honor, bound into John Ringo's Hell's Faire.

I got hooked reading John Ringo's books after browsing through my copy of the War of Honor CD... and it's a great way of catching up on the previous books in the series. Hell's Faire looks really good - I personally am looking forward to finding out what happens to the O'Neals as they fight the Posleen on Earth, and to the crew of Bun-Bun... Eat anti-matter Posleen-boy!"

As secure as ... well, you pick. Anthanos writes "pGina [http://pgina.xpasystems.com], a modular authentication framework for Windows, has come a long way since it was last noted on /. nearly a year ago. Since then a full-fledged LDAP plugin, PAM plugin, and chaining have all become part of the feature set. The kicker is the recently released Slashdot plugin, which allows authentication of Windows clients with... yup you guessed it, Slashdot Accounts! XPA Systems has even begun offering services revolving around this GPL product. Seems this may be the solution for people looking to merge authentication of Windows clients with MacOSX, Solaris, and other *nix boxen."

Let's see a handheld that uses both, please ... Mattias Östergren writes "Well aware of the risks with dependency of GPS the European Space Agency (ESA) have developed their own satellite navigation system, EGNOS. EGNOS is more accurate than GPS and the signal also tell you how much it could be off.

The first reference station have just been installed on the roof of the Land Survey in Gävle, Sweden. There is a Swedish press release about it."

Slashback tonight brings you yet another handful of updates and amplifications to previously posted stories, including some naysaying to Lessig's idea of the spectrum as commons, more free books from Baen, and the European answer to GPS. Read on for the details.

Sir, you just need to trust us. geekee writes "An article on CNN claims that the proposed passenger-screening system for air travelers is much more innocuous than previously claimed. Now it is claimed that the Transportation Security Administration "will not view credit records, traffic violations or other personal data", according to Admiral James Loy. He also claims records of travel will not be maintained. "Airline reservation agents would provide a traveler's name, address, phone number, date of birth, and travel plans to the TSA, which would then check that information against a variety of commercial databases and an FBI watch list.", according to TSA spokeperson Heather Rosenker."

Thinking of the children means more than hiding their eyes. Jim Tyre writes: "You pointed out that my censorware.net piece ["CIPA Before the Supreme Court"] provided a nifty link to where the official supreme court oral argument transcript would be when available online. It's now available."

What's good for the mercantilists ... wait, no doesn't have the same ring. Lawrence Lessig says that the current radio spectrum is vastly underutilized, and that new technology can extract much more use from it, creating a true radio commons. Zo writes to point out that many Salon readers disagree: "Radio waves, bandwidth, the spectrum. . .Don't we know *anything* for sure?

Sir, these books smell fine ... what's the catch? silentbozo writes "Avid Slashdotters will remember the Baen Free Library, which puts up free web versions of Baen titles for ANYONE to download and read without having to mess around with encryption and DRM. They went a step further with this experiment last fall with the release of David Weber's War of Honor which had a bunch of novels in html, rtf, doc, palmdoc, and othe formats on CD (bound into the hardcover), which you could copy and give away to anyone. Well, they're at it again. In May, they'll have another CD for those of you who didn't get War of Honor, bound into John Ringo's Hell's Faire.

I got hooked reading John Ringo's books after browsing through my copy of the War of Honor CD... and it's a great way of catching up on the previous books in the series. Hell's Faire looks really good - I personally am looking forward to finding out what happens to the O'Neals as they fight the Posleen on Earth, and to the crew of Bun-Bun... Eat anti-matter Posleen-boy!"

As secure as ... well, you pick. Anthanos writes "pGina [http://pgina.xpasystems.com], a modular authentication framework for Windows, has come a long way since it was last noted on /. nearly a year ago. Since then a full-fledged LDAP plugin, PAM plugin, and chaining have all become part of the feature set. The kicker is the recently released Slashdot plugin, which allows authentication of Windows clients with... yup you guessed it, Slashdot Accounts! XPA Systems has even begun offering services revolving around this GPL product. Seems this may be the solution for people looking to merge authentication of Windows clients with MacOSX, Solaris, and other *nix boxen."

Let's see a handheld that uses both, please ... Mattias Östergren writes "Well aware of the risks with dependency of GPS the European Space Agency (ESA) have developed their own satellite navigation system, EGNOS. EGNOS is more accurate than GPS and the signal also tell you how much it could be off.

The first reference station have just been installed on the roof of the Land Survey in Gävle, Sweden. There is a Swedish press release about it."

Slashback tonight brings you yet another handful of updates and amplifications to previously posted stories, including some naysaying to Lessig's idea of the spectrum as commons, more free books from Baen, and the European answer to GPS. Read on for the details.

Sir, you just need to trust us. geekee writes "An article on CNN claims that the proposed passenger-screening system for air travelers is much more innocuous than previously claimed. Now it is claimed that the Transportation Security Administration "will not view credit records, traffic violations or other personal data", according to Admiral James Loy. He also claims records of travel will not be maintained. "Airline reservation agents would provide a traveler's name, address, phone number, date of birth, and travel plans to the TSA, which would then check that information against a variety of commercial databases and an FBI watch list.", according to TSA spokeperson Heather Rosenker."

Thinking of the children means more than hiding their eyes. Jim Tyre writes: "You pointed out that my censorware.net piece ["CIPA Before the Supreme Court"] provided a nifty link to where the official supreme court oral argument transcript would be when available online. It's now available."

What's good for the mercantilists ... wait, no doesn't have the same ring. Lawrence Lessig says that the current radio spectrum is vastly underutilized, and that new technology can extract much more use from it, creating a true radio commons. Zo writes to point out that many Salon readers disagree: "Radio waves, bandwidth, the spectrum. . .Don't we know *anything* for sure?

Sir, these books smell fine ... what's the catch? silentbozo writes "Avid Slashdotters will remember the Baen Free Library, which puts up free web versions of Baen titles for ANYONE to download and read without having to mess around with encryption and DRM. They went a step further with this experiment last fall with the release of David Weber's War of Honor which had a bunch of novels in html, rtf, doc, palmdoc, and othe formats on CD (bound into the hardcover), which you could copy and give away to anyone. Well, they're at it again. In May, they'll have another CD for those of you who didn't get War of Honor, bound into John Ringo's Hell's Faire.

I got hooked reading John Ringo's books after browsing through my copy of the War of Honor CD... and it's a great way of catching up on the previous books in the series. Hell's Faire looks really good - I personally am looking forward to finding out what happens to the O'Neals as they fight the Posleen on Earth, and to the crew of Bun-Bun... Eat anti-matter Posleen-boy!"

As secure as ... well, you pick. Anthanos writes "pGina [http://pgina.xpasystems.com], a modular authentication framework for Windows, has come a long way since it was last noted on /. nearly a year ago. Since then a full-fledged LDAP plugin, PAM plugin, and chaining have all become part of the feature set. The kicker is the recently released Slashdot plugin, which allows authentication of Windows clients with... yup you guessed it, Slashdot Accounts! XPA Systems has even begun offering services revolving around this GPL product. Seems this may be the solution for people looking to merge authentication of Windows clients with MacOSX, Solaris, and other *nix boxen."

Let's see a handheld that uses both, please ... Mattias Östergren writes "Well aware of the risks with dependency of GPS the European Space Agency (ESA) have developed their own satellite navigation system, EGNOS. EGNOS is more accurate than GPS and the signal also tell you how much it could be off.

The first reference station have just been installed on the roof of the Land Survey in Gävle, Sweden. There is a Swedish press release about it."

Several Slashdot staff people are major Larry Niven fans, so we feel he needs no introduction. You asked. He answered. Enough said. Read and enjoy.

1) Fallen Angels, Baen Free Library, and RMS
by Robotech_Master

Your collaborative novel Fallen Angels is available in the Baen Free Library. What prompted you to make it available there?

Have its paper sales picked up since you posted it there? (Assuming it's still in print to be sold.) Might you consider making some of your other works available that way?

Also, Fallen Angels features a couple of references to one of the ultimate ubergeeks of the Linux world, Richard M. Stallman. Who was responsible for that? (I'm guessing it would have been Pournelle.) Are there any amusing stories associated with those appearances?

Niven:

Jim Baen's theory is that putting a work on the net will sell more paper copies. Paper books are easier to read and carry around. I thought it worth testing. So did my collaborators.

I don't have figures on whether it worked: raised the sales of Fallen Angels. I'll have to ask Jim Baen. If the theory holds, sure I'll make more stuff available. Long ago I gave away Net rights to certain short works, "Man of Steel/Woman of Kleenex" and "Down in Flames".

Richard Stallman must have ben put in by Jerry or Mike, not by me. We all did some research into science fiction fans; I introduced Mike Flynn to several on the West Coast, and he found his own in the East. Most of the characters in the book are real people suitably altered.

2) Is Science Fiction healthy?
by technoCon

Lots of folks love SF: Today there's a cable network and a nauseating volume of Star Trek reruns. Computer graphics makes it feasible to put a movie into any imaginable setting. Technology is being deployed so quickly that Vernor Vinge's singularity comes to mind. Technological progress is moving so fast it is hard to anticipate it.

NASA is dinking around in LEO: Boldly going where John Glenn has gone four decades before. I don't know who said it: The future just ain't what it used to be.

The Sputnik generation is graying: When I was a lad, I watched moon shots. It captured my imagination. I read any book that had a rocket on its cover. I'm late forties and will be dead of cancer soon.

Writers are moving out of SF: William Gibson's latest novel has high geek content, but none of the science isn't already deployed. Same for Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_: good story with high geek content, but nothing beyond the current state of the art. And I've seen guys who once wrote Hard Science Fiction branching out to Fantasy.

Publishing is corporatized: The huge bookstores I haunt have SF sections that are overcrowded with Fantasy and StarTrek, StarWars, Babylon5 & (insert corporate franchise here) serials.

It looks to me as if Science Fiction is in trouble, or it may be sick, or it may be dead and doesn't know it yet.

What is your assessment of SF's health and which of these considerations do you think most significant?

Niven:

We were a tiny, despised cluster of the socially inept when I first found other science fiction fans. Today we have a hell of a lot more respect, success, and money. The field is healthy.

Yes, good SF writers veer into fantasy and mainstream. I do it too. It's a break, a vacation. Don't let it disturb you.

As for the rest--do you see the media invading the science fiction field? It's the other way around. We've fully corrupted them; it only remains to educate them too.

But we ourselves are not moving into space.

Note: we're learning about the universe at an amazing rate. We're exploring the planets. We've got everything we hoped for, except that human beings aren't going and aliens don't seem to be waiting. I don't know what to do about that, except to show the dream to as many minds as I can reach.

Most of my friends are convinced that NASA is the great roadblock. I have my doubts. We persuaded Goldin that all he had to do was fire two levels of NASA bureaucrats and...he managed it, and magic didn't happen. Maybe what we're up against is the universe.

3) Intersection of SciFi and Gaming
by Shadow Wrought

What do you think of video games as a future outlet for original SciFi universes? Do you think that the interactive environments games provide will appeal to writers who would otherwise create movies or shorts?

Niven:

I love it. Any new market (such as video games) opens more options for creativity, and more money. Games and movie/tv and books will feed into each other. Mind you, that's hard on the novices: competition is going to get fiercer yet.

4) Cautionary tales?
by J. Random Software

You've built worlds with uncommonly dystopian elements, such as Plateau's long tyranny over a disarmed populace, organlegging, all-out war with ruthless aliens, and suppression of dangerous technology. Have you intended any of these to be cautions about likely (or even inevitable) events, or just interesting to think about?

Niven:

Sure, they're all intended as warnings. Nevertheless--what I've been serving up through most of my career are the dark sides of bright futures.

Organlegging, including State executions for organs, is the dark side of longevity, advanced medical techniques.

Disarmed populace and suppression of dangerous technology seem inevitable. Be warned.

War with aliens seems less likely, except that an enemy is always alien to some extent.

Plateau was fairyland with a single flaw.

5) Favorite book?
by emarkp

Of the work you've written, does one title in particular have a special place in your heart? Douglas Adams once said that his book "Last Chance to See" was the one book he'd hope that people read if they only read one of his books. Is there one book of yours you'd like people to have read?

Similarly, if I were to introduce someone to your books, which one would you suggest I give him first?

Niven:

What book you give depends on who you're giving it to. To a mundane, give LUCIFER'S HAMMER. To a scientist, give THE INTEGRAL TREES. To someone who already wants to write, or to know about Niven, give N-SPACE or PLAYGROUNDS OF THE MIND or the forthcoming SCATTERBRAIN. Fantasy fans and Angelinos get THE BURNING CITY. If I had to bet my reputation it would be on RINGWORLD.

6) Intelligence and Wisdom
by Kostya

Could you comment on the difference between intelligence and wisdom? You seem to hint at some ideas in Ringworld Throne when Wu chooses to depose the Vampire Protector because he was not wise enough.

In these Pak Protectors, we have unbelievably intelligent and clever beings, but wisdom does not seem implied. What are your thoughts on wisdom, and what points were you trying to make? Considering the audience for most of your books (geeks, "smart folk"), it's an interesting point to include.

Side question: where did you come up with the idea of the Pak, especially as human ancestors? It has to be one of the more original conjectures about effects of old age that I have ever read :-)

Niven:

My father and stepmother got us into a night class in hominid development. From what I learned, and one initial assumption, I extrapolated protectors. The assumption was, every symptom of aging is a stunted version of something intended to make us better able to defend our descendants.

Fans have pointed out developments even I missed. Thus: We breeders have a stunted sense of smell because our protector forms would otherwise be obeying their noses, rejecting outsider mates for their breeders, causing inbreeding.

The original (Pak) protectors are still too reflexive: they've got intelligence but not wisdom.

Intelligence is a tool or tool set. Wisdom is what you do with that. I've met people who specialized their intelligence, who never developed a life. I know yoga students like that too.

I've written at length about wisdom and intelligence because I didn't have a short answer.

7) What do you read?
by caesar-auf-nihil

Mr. Niven,

I'm always curious about what authors read for either inspiration, or what they find to be good literature. What books (science fiction or otherwise) have influenced your work, or do you find to be delightful reads. Any favorite authors?

Thank you for your time.

Niven:

THE WIZARD OF OZ seems to have inspired me as a child.

Today I read a lot of science fiction, and I take friends' advice for what else pops up. I loved CRYPTONOMICON. I read everything by Tim Powers and Terry Pratchett and a lot of Connie Willis. Some really good hard SF writers have popped up, and I read them: John Barnes, Bruce Sterling, Stephen Baxter. Barbara Hambly's detective fiction. Patrick O'Brian's sea stories, courtesy of John Hertz.

8) Why is there no religion in Known Space
by Adam Rightmann

I know most SF writers aren't big on religion, but religion occupies a very large space in your collaboration with Pournelle, "The Mote in God's Eye", yet is conspicously lacking in Known Space. Is the religion in "Mote" all Jerry's doing?

Niven:

Yes, it is. I'm not comfortable speculating on the development of new and established religions. The Kdaptist heresy was a joke. INFERNO was a compulsion: I'd read Dante's INFERNO and my mind wouldn't let go of it, and I sucked Jerry into it too. My motives weren't religious, they were a storyteller's.

9) Crossing my fingers
by Demona

Was your cease-and-desist regarding Elf Sternberg's "The Only Fair Game" motivated more by a personal aversion to the content, or a desire to retain control over "your universe"? How does this jibe with your statement in Ringworld Engineers that "If you want more Known Space stories, you'll have to write them yourself"?

Niven:

I couldn't remember "The Only Fair Game", so I used your link.

I don't buy its premise. An older species won't have human versatility in sex: sexual responses will be all hard wired. Kzinti females won't be soft and unresponsive, either. You die if you make that mistake.

I probably issued a cease-and-desist when the story was described to me as violating my copyright. It does that, of course, and I notice the "desist" had no effect.

Once upon a time there was a gaming article that blew away the punch lines of several Man-Kzin War stories. I asked that it not be published. In that case too, I acted to protect my copyrights and my authors.

More generally--"If you want more Known Space stories" was intended as an invitation to daydream, not to violate my copyrights and steal my ideas. Turning such dreams into stories is only done under restricted circumstances and with permission.

But these dreams can make my morning. I love it when someone sees an implication I missed. (I get these via email, usually, or as Man-Kzin War stories.) And after all, there are things I can't copyright or patent or trademark. "Halo" looks like a poor man's Ringworld, but I didn't invent spin gravity.

10) Movie Jealousy?
by spun

David Brin has been forthright concerning his jealousy over bad SF being made into movies while his work is not. With the exception of 'Forbidden Planet' I have yet to see a science fiction movie that draws me in the way a good Sci-Fi book does.

I also think that your works would make excellent movies. Brin's work would probably play well in Europe, where people seem to prefer a little more ambiguity in their movies. It probably wouldn't do well here. Now, I'm not saying your writing isn't of the same caliber as Brin's work, but it is a little more accesible to the common man, and therefore seems well suited to be made into a blockbuster that would do well in the states. My questions: 1.) Are you at all jealous that lesser talents get to have their work seen by millions on the silver screen? 2.) Have you been approached by any producers regarding screenplays of your work? 3.) Would you even want to have your works made into movies?

That said, I just have to say thank you for providing me with so much quality entertainment! I grew up reading your stories from the time I was ten. In my esteem, you are one of the best well rounded Sci Fi authors out there. Your work has great characters, fantastic settings, believable science, and lots of action. Thanks again.

Niven:

Sure I'm jealous, and angry. I've waited too long to take my family to a movie made from my works, and now my mother's gotten to old to go. I'm glad to see Brin's "The Postman" on the big screen. I like his message. But I'd like to see Harry the Mailman, from "Lucifer's Hammer", up there too.

And sure I've sold rights and options, and written a Star Trek cartoon and sold an Outer Limits episode, but it's not the same as walking into a theater. Movies cost a lot more than options do.

Yes, I would like to see my works made into movies. All of them. Short stories as well as novels. Why not? A movie doesn't ruin a book; the book is still there, unchanged, and may even see a larger audience. See Vince Gerardis of Created By, my agent, if you've just won a lottery.

nellardo writes "War of Honor is out, complete with the aforementioned CD-ROM full of free, unencrypted novels. If you're a true fan of Honor Harrington, you probably don't need this review - you've already bought the book. If you're just waiting for paperback, don't, because the CD-ROM included with the book is worth the price of the book. If you're new to the Honor Harrington series, reading the book itself is not the place to start, but with the entire series (and then some) on the CD, you might want to pick up the book anyway, just for the CD-ROM." War of Honor author David Weber pages 869 + CD-ROM publisher Baen Books rating 9 reviewer Brook Conner ISBN 0743435451 summary Essential for fans of Honor Harrington. Sometimes turgid and complex political sci-fi. CD-ROM worth the cover price by itself.

War of Honor is the tenth full novel in David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and thirteenth book (there being three collections of stories set in the so-called "Honorverse"). For those of you that have read the earlier novels, this is more of the same, though Honor herself figures perhaps somewhat less prominently in it than in previous novels. It's got Weber's usual rich and detailed plot, along with Weber's occassionally turgid and expository writing.

One thing that makes this novel different from the others is that Weber has fully incorporated characters and plot lines from the short stories set in the "Honorverse" but penned by other authors. Earlier novels had made allusions to some of Weber's own short stories, but none had integrated another author's work to the extent that War of Honor does. Of course, this does nothing to simplify the plot or reduce the expository interludes (Weber includes enough explanation so that you can follow the plot without having read the prior short story). It does add to the flavor though, and helps keep Weber from simply retreading old ground.

Discussion of the plot, even aside from spoiler concerns, is well-nigh impossible. There's simply too much that happens. This isn't a book that could be a film - it's a mini-series, even without the prior nine novels. War of Honor is not a light and fluffy read. It's a good two hundred pages longer than the previous novel (Ashes of Victory) and doesn't have some of the breezy, happy passages of its predecessor. In fact, you might want to take a break halfway through - I did, with a complete novel in a much lighter vein (bad pun - it was an Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel). Suffice it to say that Weber knows how to write the next installment in a series: this one resolves enough threads to make it satisfying and opens enough new ones that readers will continue to scream for the next novel.

What Slashdotters are most familiar with, though, is the CD-ROM that's been discussed here before. And it's a nice one, to be sure. While the books on the CD themselves are available at Baen's Free Library, the CD contains more.

One of the most wonderful resources is the art gallery: the covers of the most recent editions of the Honor Harrington books as jpg images, all at 800x1200 pixel resolution or greater. Not scans of the covers but images of the original art, without the title graphics or anything else. I predict some very nice wallpapers coming soon to a site near you.

The CD-ROM also has other lovely tidbits, such as audio selections from several novels and MP3s of songs from the group Echo's Children. So even if you haven't caught this filk group at a sci-fi con, you still get their songs and lyrics based on events in the Harrington novels.

And all of this is on top of all the books on the CD-ROM. All ten Harrington novels, and yes, that includes War of Honor itself. All three collections of Harrington stories. And twenty five (not the previously-reported twenty two) other books, from the likes of David Drake, Eric Flint, Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey, Keith Laumer, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, John Ringo, and James H. Schmitz. No encryption. No copy protection. In several formats each, including HTML, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Rocket, and RTF files.

Put it all together in one no-download place and the CD-ROM is arguably worth the price of the hardcover book all by itself. Certainly, no new release CD-ROM sold by itself is going to sell for much less than US$26 (the cost of the book).

I'm of course reminded of Tim O'Reilly's (and many others) numerous comments to the effect that obscurity is a bigger problem for publishers than piracy. Jim Baen evidently agrees. He's just put the full text of a brand new flagship property (another bad pun, I'm sorry) in the clear. The disk even says you can copy it. Stamped right on the disk: "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold." Even the copyright notice says "All commercial rights reserved." Not "All rights reserved."

Given the popularity of the Honor Harrington series over all, it's just possible that this novel will make the NY Times (free reg, blah blah :-) best sellers list. And if it did, with its entire text freely and legally available on the net, wouldn't that be an interesting place for publishing to be?

You can purchase War of Honor from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

nojayuk writes "Jim Baen of Baen Books is releasing David Weber's latest space opera epic in the Honor Harrington series, War of Honor, with a CD-ROM bound in the back a la computer reference works. From the website, he says this CD-ROM will contain the complete text of 22 novels, including all the previous Harrington books by Weber as well as illustrations of book jackets, sound samples etc. The Baen website says the texts on the CD-ROM will be unencrypted, requiring no special readers or decoders. The files are in .rtf or .html format, and the buyer will be able to download them into their PDA of choice. Baen's website is already a rich source of free SF books for download; I've harvested quite a few myself in the past. Jim and many of his writers are advocates of this kind of promotion, dismissing talk about piracy as paranoia. Baen books also supports a Web subscription service for new books, another bonus for PDA bookreaders." We've mentioned the Baen library and its effects on sales in several previous stories; it'll be interesting to see how this CD-ROM helps or hurts.

nojayuk writes "Jim Baen of Baen Books is releasing David Weber's latest space opera epic in the Honor Harrington series, War of Honor, with a CD-ROM bound in the back a la computer reference works. From the website, he says this CD-ROM will contain the complete text of 22 novels, including all the previous Harrington books by Weber as well as illustrations of book jackets, sound samples etc. The Baen website says the texts on the CD-ROM will be unencrypted, requiring no special readers or decoders. The files are in .rtf or .html format, and the buyer will be able to download them into their PDA of choice. Baen's website is already a rich source of free SF books for download; I've harvested quite a few myself in the past. Jim and many of his writers are advocates of this kind of promotion, dismissing talk about piracy as paranoia. Baen books also supports a Web subscription service for new books, another bonus for PDA bookreaders." We've mentioned the Baen library and its effects on sales in several previous stories; it'll be interesting to see how this CD-ROM helps or hurts.

Robotech_Master writes "Eric Flint has posted two new Prime Palaver rants. The first one is a continuation of the one that was mentioned here on Slashdot the other day, about the Free Library, the e-book, encryption, and you:'One thing you have to understand about this whole controversy is how much of it is sheer hot air. Many authors and most publishers, when they address this issue, give people the impression they're at risk of losing their shirt through electronic "piracy." That's pure hogwash[...]' The second is a response to the idea of boycotting Harlan Ellison for his anti-piracy stance (and I imagine some Slashdot faces will be red over some of what he has to say!)." We linked to Ellison's rant last year.

Robotech_Master writes "Eric Flint has posted two new Prime Palaver rants. The first one is a continuation of the one that was mentioned here on Slashdot the other day, about the Free Library, the e-book, encryption, and you:'One thing you have to understand about this whole controversy is how much of it is sheer hot air. Many authors and most publishers, when they address this issue, give people the impression they're at risk of losing their shirt through electronic "piracy." That's pure hogwash[...]' The second is a response to the idea of boycotting Harlan Ellison for his anti-piracy stance (and I imagine some Slashdot faces will be red over some of what he has to say!)." We linked to Ellison's rant last year.

Robotech_Master writes "Eric Flint has posted two new Prime Palaver rants. The first one is a continuation of the one that was mentioned here on Slashdot the other day, about the Free Library, the e-book, encryption, and you:'One thing you have to understand about this whole controversy is how much of it is sheer hot air. Many authors and most publishers, when they address this issue, give people the impression they're at risk of losing their shirt through electronic "piracy." That's pure hogwash[...]' The second is a response to the idea of boycotting Harlan Ellison for his anti-piracy stance (and I imagine some Slashdot faces will be red over some of what he has to say!)." We linked to Ellison's rant last year.

Robotech_Master writes "Eric Flint has posted two new Prime Palaver rants. The first one is a continuation of the one that was mentioned here on Slashdot the other day, about the Free Library, the e-book, encryption, and you:'One thing you have to understand about this whole controversy is how much of it is sheer hot air. Many authors and most publishers, when they address this issue, give people the impression they're at risk of losing their shirt through electronic "piracy." That's pure hogwash[...]' The second is a response to the idea of boycotting Harlan Ellison for his anti-piracy stance (and I imagine some Slashdot faces will be red over some of what he has to say!)." We linked to Ellison's rant last year.

Freeptop writes "Here's a fun followup to an old slashdot article: Eric Flint just posted another Prime Palaver article on the Baen Free Library. In this article of his, he talks about the effects of posting his books for free on the library. Specifically, he uses his own royalty statements to show that sales for his books have gone up whenever he has made them available for free. As usual, Mr. Flint writes a well thought out article demonstrating the pointlessness of encrypting e-books, and this time, he has proof to back up his assumptions."

Freeptop writes "Here's a fun followup to an old slashdot article: Eric Flint just posted another Prime Palaver article on the Baen Free Library. In this article of his, he talks about the effects of posting his books for free on the library. Specifically, he uses his own royalty statements to show that sales for his books have gone up whenever he has made them available for free. As usual, Mr. Flint writes a well thought out article demonstrating the pointlessness of encrypting e-books, and this time, he has proof to back up his assumptions."

gaijin99 writes: "Kinda old, but Baen Books is letting any of their authors put up their books, for free, online. They are putting them up at the Baen Library No strings attached, downloadable in many formats. Apparently it got started when author Eric Flint said that online piracy didn't matter to book sales. Challenged to prove this, he got Baen to build the 'Free Online Library.' His position is that it will improve the sale of his books. Only six authors right now, but it looks good."