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You, sir, have the finest licensing agreement that I have ever seen in the introduction of your book. I was genuinely moved.

I enjoyed that too!

However I am in law school and that is a pretty air-tight agreement.

"You are allowed to use it, view it, modify it without permission of the author Eugene Blanchard, provided that you agree to the following"

So let's say you wanted to do the most basic thing with this book, all you wanted to do was read it. That would come under "use" in the above.
So if you want to read this book without the authors permission you would have to fulfill all of the following conditions:

                * That you will try to be a better person today than yesterday.
                * That you will exercise your body as well as your mind.
                * That you will tell the persons dear to you that you love them.
                * That you will defend the rights of those who are unable to defend themselves.
                * That you will not hurt your family members emotionally or physically.
                * That you will respect your elders and care for them in time of need.
                * That you will respect the rights of others in their religious beliefs.
                * That you will respect the rights of others in their sexual orientation.
                * That every man, woman and child has the right to be here and is equal regardless of race, creed or color.
                * That you will act honorably in all aspects of your personal and business life.
                * That your family is first and foremost the most important thing in your life.
                * That when you make a mistake, that you admit it and make amends.

Perhaps the agreement should have been worded differently. That one should try to aspire to these goals rather than that they are pre-requisites for use :P
Even a saint couldn't do all of these things and if Mr. Blanchard wanted to sue, any two-bit lawyer could prove that the defendant fell short of at least one of these clauses.

On another note, I doubt it will come to that and having to read boring contracts all day long, I enjoyed this one :) Thanks.

I can not read the book. I can not accept the license that requires my moral values to coincide with those of the author. For example, "That your family is first and foremost the most important thing in your life." makes not much sense to me, with no wife, no kids, parents dead, and the rest of the family not interested in much contact, and residing in a different country anyway.

Although he means well with it, I find such licensing an offensive intrusion in my life. If my employer would put up conditions like "That you will exercise your body as well as your mind" I would certainly tell him to stay out of my private life.

Some of the points are blatantly impossible. For example, "That you will defend the rights of those who are unable to defend themselves". Note that there is no provision to make this apply only occasionally, only when practical or even possible. Thus, anyone who is not defending the people in Libya, in China, and in Afghanistan, at the same time, is in violation of the license.

Moral principles are fine, but trying to enforce them as a condition for reading a book is absurd. If that is the price for reading the book, I rather keep my freedom!

I use to have a pdf of the book but the BW charges from people downloading started to cost me money every monthjust to give it away. As for the editor, that just one of the good services that I could use ;-) There's a lot of work required to update it. I was especially proud of the Token Ring section than it became obsolete. I added the disclaimer at the beginning of the Token Ring section to stop teachers from using it in their curriculum other than as historical. Kept getting enquiries about Token Ring, the dead protocol. I just don't have the heart to remove it.

You, sir, have the finest licensing agreement that I have ever seen in the introduction of your book. I was genuinely moved.

1. Add another 200 pages
2. Create an online website
3. Create an online test bank
4. They would forward $5,000 of my expected earnings in order to perform the years worth of work.
5. Hand over complete copyright to them
6. If they decided that any changes were required, I would have to pay for the changes regardless if I agreed with them or not.

I told the VP what I thought in the most appropriate terms and stated that I would give the book away rather than have anything to do their company. So since 2000, the book Introduction to Data Communications has been free online to anyone who wishes to use it. I used to make pocket change from the Google adds and for the last couple of years, instead of Google adds, I advertise the programs that I teach for at the post-secondary institute.

woof.

I am in my second (last) year of the Computer Technology at SAIT in Calgary, Alberta Canada and it has an excellent Computer Program. Every year new students get access to top ofthe line technology leasing a brand new laptop throught the school (currently PII 333 with 6.4 GB HD, 64 MB RAM running Win 98 and Redhat Linux. Office 97, Turbo C++, a Java development tool, an SQL Developer and several other pieces of software come preinstalled and all this for $700 CND an semester for 4 semesters with a $1000 dollar buyout option at the end of the program. The program itself costs about $2000 Canadian per semester and I'm not sure what the cost is for international/american students but the current exchange rate is damn good. Students are taught algorithm design/problem solving in C (not C++), Oracle SQL datalase Queries, and assembly language for the Motorola 68HC11 chip on an MIT developed Handyboard. The opertunity to learn Java, CGI/Perl and other languages also exists as other students usually have expertice in various areas. Bonus: class sizes are only 30 people. Southern Alberta Institute of Technology