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Collaborative Online Textbook Project
rocketjam writes "OpenTextBook.org is a new project to create a free, open text book 'collaboratively written by anyone on the internet', using a Creative Commons license. Citing the free software development model and the philosophy that underlies much of that effort, OpenTextBook.org's introduction says this philosophy should apply 'at its most basic to the learning of science.' They hope the project will help to counter the current governmental trend of strengthening the scope, duration and rights of intellectual property owners while cutting back on the fair use rights of individuals. The current state of the project is available as a daily snapshot pdf file which contains the introduction to the project and 9 chapters mostly covering math at this time."
Mine's finished (see my sig). It's GFDL.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Ok, here's one... in 10 years, when this is actually in use in a fair amount of schools, SCO's publishing arm will find paragraphs in it that some well intentioned moron decided to copy verbatim from his textbook he bought at the used book store or on eBay (he is heard saying while typing, "well, I paid for it, didn't I?"). SCO Books(TM) will then proceed to charge college students a $69.90 (they're college students, after all) "licencing" fee to avoid being sued.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Making money is not wrong. The price of textbooks is often because of the small print runs. However, I can see print-on-demand making these costs go down. The technology exists today through companies like CafePress.com and LightningSource.com to make as few as 1 copy of a book for very low prices.
Of course, my book isn't expensive. In fact, it's the least-expensive book on assembly language that is available (see my sig).
Engineering and the Ultimate