Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual

This should happen more often by slusich · 2004-07-06 00:49 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's great to hear a story about someone who took it upon himself to do what was needed. Cisco was obviously not responsive to him, so he goes out and does it on his own. Not only that, he decides to share his work with everyone. Now hopefully Cisco has the common sense not to sue him for his efforts.

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Re:This should happen more often by MoonFog · 2004-07-06 00:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Sue him for what exactly? He wrote the book and unless he's plagiarised some of its content, then they wouldn't have much of a case. Given his profession, I'm sure he's more than capable of writing this book on his own.
He's the owner of the material, and I seriously doubt that he can be sued for anything at all.
Re:This should happen more often by Short+Circuit · 2004-07-06 00:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

How about republishing Cisco's API without their permission? Cisco probably likes the revenues they get from selling their docs and their training manual.

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Re:This should happen more often by gmack · 2004-07-06 01:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

"About half the people in this program barely know how to turn on a computer, so we need to start with the very basics. The Cisco curriculum and texts assume a certain level of knowledge."

I'm not so sure this is the best idea hes dumbed down the manual to make room for the computer illiterate.. shoehorning students with no technical background into a network administration course seems like a bit of a waste.

There is a lot to be said for having a sepperate class to teach the basics.
Re:This should happen more often by Short+Circuit · 2004-07-06 01:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

In this day and age...

In this day and age, laws are irrelevant. You just have to be able to financially afford more time in court.

Scratch the "in this day and age" part, though...it's always been true.

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Re:This should happen more often by Jayfar · 2004-07-06 01:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Huh?! What API? Unless your considering router configs as application programs, there is no API. And there are literally hundreds of books written about cisco configuration, beyond those published by/for cisco.
Re:This should happen more often by thammoud · 2004-07-06 01:16 · Score: 4, Informative

Neither Java nor .Net are EMCA standards. C# is.
Re:This should happen more often by farzadb82 · 2004-07-06 01:17 · Score: 5, Informative

"Java and .Net are ECMA standards"
I don't know where you got your info from but Java is NOT ECMA standardized and as for .net, only the CLR and C# langauge are ECMA standardized.
Re:This should happen more often by BigBir3d · 2004-07-06 01:28 · Score: 5, Informative

RTFA:

<quote>Before publishing the book on his own, Basham said he had contacted Cisco Press about publishing it, but it wasn't interested. After his free book appeared online last week, however, the company contacted him via e-mail requesting a meeting to discuss the program at St. Petersburg College.

Company spokeswoman Goodwin said that Cisco is always looking for ways to improve the program.

She said that although instructors are required to teach the Cisco Academy curriculum, they are welcome to supplement it as necessary. She also emphasized that none of the Cisco Academy students are required to buy any of the textbooks from Cisco.

"Cisco has a long-standing relationship with St. Petersburg College," she said. "And we have a process-oriented quality assurance program with the (Cisco) Academy where we work collaboratively with institutions to solicit feedback. We are continually making improvements based on customer needs."</quote>

Cisco obviously thinks this is as cool as most of us think it is.
Re:This should happen more often by MoonFog · 2004-07-06 01:44 · Score: 4, Informative

Cisco's software is completely different. Add to the fact that they may not normally allow unlicensed books about their software, and you've got a sticky situation.

What you're basically saying is that you cannot write about how you configure a Cisco router? What about books like these ? I would be very surprised if Cisco demanded licencse from the "Dummies" series, just as an example.

And just to add to what the others have said, Java and VB .Net are not ECMA standards. Sun has kept a tight grip around Java so as not to loose control over it, there are still hundreds of books available on Java.
Re:This should happen more often by amaffew · 2004-07-06 01:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

Thanks guys...I am not a lawyer but have spent several years studying copyright and internet law...I even got the opportunity to lead a session at Harvard Law School one summer. Heck, one of the professors there, Johnathon Zittrain, even downloaded the book...he's an old-school chat room moderator turned internet lawyer...he and his colleagues have even taking pro-bono work to fight for open source rights. I think I have sufficiently covered my assets with respect to the book...it has actually been out for three years and I haven't heard anything so far. Besides I put some really specific phrases in there that help cast aside their chances. Thanks again. I will go out and read all the posts too. You should see the one on www.macpro.se that appeared in swedish! Gratis lärobok för Ciscos kurser Thanks again Matt PS if you download the book shoot me an email and let me know where you are located...I am keeping track on a map. Bashamm@spcollege.edu
Re:This should happen more often by k98sven · 2004-07-06 02:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

How did this seriously strange view of IP law get modded up?

You don't need permission from anybody to publish an API. There is no special copyright law covering API specifications.

Perhaps you are thinking of trade-secret status?
Well, if something has been publicly published, it doesn't doesn't get trade-secret status. And that goes even if they put some silly 'license' on their documentation.
(See for instance the BSDi case, where the Unix sources were found not to have trade-secret status without even being public, but simply because they had been seen by so many people. And that is despite the fact that they even had written agreements with all of them.)

You don't have to get a license to publish an original book on anything, ever.

Do you know what a license is? A license is permission from a rights-holder to exercise an otherwise exclusive right.

For copyright, that means performing, reproducing and creating derivatives of copyrighted material.

For patents, that means the right to manufacture and use the invention.

For trade-secrets, that means the right to divulge and use commercially the trade secret.

Now, if I chose not to publish my API secret, then it may be a trade-secret, in which case you may not have the right to publish it if you happen to be 'in' on it. APIs can however be reverse-engineered. You can reverse-engineer an API without any trade-secret knowledge (i.e. 'clean-room') and publish that, that is perfectly legal.

Perhaps you think that the API itself can be copyrighted, and that a description of the API is a derivative work? Well, that's a theory, but very dubious legally.

Under copyright law, code is separated into the "expressional" and "functional" parts, and APIs reasonably always fall into the latter part, and are therefore not copyrightable. In case law, good room is generally given for compatibility code, being functional. (Again, you can see the BSDi case, where it was found that header files describing the same Unix API were not infringing)

If the API itself is not copyrighted, something which has yet to be seen, the description of the API cannot be a derivative work.
Naturally, the description itself can be copyrighted, including the official description, (e.g. the API specification) but anyone can write their own description.

Eeeeek... by Noryungi · 2004-07-06 00:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's a 5.1MB Microsoft Word file.

Oh the horror... The horror...

Please, Mr Matt Basham, release this as a PDF, RTF or HTML file... Anything but Word. I ma willing to help if needed.

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Re:Eeeeek... by komejo · 2004-07-06 01:08 · Score: 5, Informative

If you register at Lulu, the free download is a PDF.
Re:Eeeeek... by Minwee · 2004-07-06 01:17 · Score: 5, Funny

"It's a 5.1MB Microsoft Word file."
So it's only three pages long? Somehow I expected more.

Still Wondering by swordboy · 2004-07-06 00:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm still wondering why the governments don't require free and "open source" text for public schools. In college, the professors used to change the text every semester so that the students couldn't sell the books back at the end of the semester (likely getting kick-backs from the text manufacturers, no doubt).

If just one state would sit down and even purchase some good works and make them freely available for modification and distribution, then the cost of education would be greatly reduced. Profs would be free to make changes at it fits their style so long as those changes are re-posted to the public. Students could read the texts online and/or print them.

What am I not seeing here?

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Re:Still Wondering by rpbailey1642 · 2004-07-06 00:57 · Score: 5, Informative

You're exactly right about getting kick-backs, as well as the fact that they collect royalties for every book they put out. My Biology teacher is friends with the author of my Biology book (this is the reason that we use it, actually) and he has stated that to stay current with the class, you need the new book. Unless, you're really cheap, in which case, you'll need to know that Chapter Five is now Chapter Seven, and other trifle changes like that. At $100 a pop, these guys are milking college students (and their delicious scholarships) for as much as they can.

as html by dncsky1530 · 2004-07-06 00:55 · Score: 5, Informative

It's quite strange that it is not a PDF file.
but is anyone wants the 5 meg html version it here

Re:Eeeeek... -- Looks good in OpenOffice 1.1.2 by invisik · 2004-07-06 00:58 · Score: 4, Informative

Seemed to open fine (After a while!) in OpenOffice Writer 1.1.2. Haven't opened in actual Word to compare formatting, but looks reasonable to me. No complaints here.

-m

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This is about certifications by 192939495969798999 · 2004-07-06 01:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

They probably figured, "we can charge a ton for our cert's forever, because no one is going to take the time to write a book." OOPS! I hope other people follow suit and finally we will be rid of the "if you're not certified, you can't have learned it" business principle.

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finally by falkryn · 2004-07-06 01:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

good to see somebody doing this. I took the first semester Cisco course at my college, and yeah, the books weren't all that good. I haven't seen his work yet, but I do recall the first semester is exclusively going over the seven layers of the OSI model in sometimes painful detail. Can tend to throw the beginning student off, especially considering the OSI model is not much more than an academic tool anyway, TCP/IP is were its at in the 'real world'.

Re:finally by illumin8 · 2004-07-06 03:06 · Score: 4, Informative

Can tend to throw the beginning student off, especially considering the OSI model is not much more than an academic tool anyway, TCP/IP is were its at in the 'real world'.

It's good to know how the OSI model works, especially when troubleshooting tricky layer 2, 3, and 4 network issues. That being said, when I took the CCNA test they only had about 2 questions on it. They were something like "Which of the following are layers in the OSI model" or something really basic like that. Anyway, my instructor had a really good way to remember the OSI model that I still remember to this day (took the class in 1997):

All People Seem To Need Data Processing.

The letters in this saying correspond very nicely with the layers in the OSI model:

Application

Presentation

Session

Transport

Network

Data Link

Physical

Hope this helps those of you studying for your CCNAs (judging by enrollment numbers in these college courses, there's a lot of you.)

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Great pricing scheme by Mark_Uplanguage · 2004-07-06 01:10 · Score: 4, Informative

I've seen some of the initial comments here and if you notice that the price of the book is $25 for the printed version, of which Mr. Basham get's $5 (20%) and the publisher gets the rest. Honestly I don't have the time to figure out what LuLu.com's expenses might be (since I have no idea the cost of bandwidth to download 5MB), but this seems like a VERY valid business model for homegrown authors to go to. Good luck to LuLu.com and my they break open the gates of good reading at reasonable costs!!!

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What??? by morgdx · 2004-07-06 01:15 · Score: 4, Funny

Networks need manuals? I thought you just had to make sure no-one knocked the patch cables out.

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Re:What??? by w1r3sp33d · 2004-07-06 01:19 · Score: 4, Funny

It's not hard fixing a disconnected cable, I am sure the majority of the book is probably a guide to hunting and finding lost token's (best hiding spots, migratory patterns, reactions of cornered tokens, ect)

Bad Self Publishing by RoscoeChicken · 2004-07-06 01:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

Self-published textbooks will only work when some sort of feedback mechanism is in place to offer an indication of the quality of the book.

For years, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, the engineering college subjected undergraduates to an extremely poor thermodynamics text self-published by an influential department chair until the thermo scores started to slide on the state EIT exams.

Cisco books... by !ramirez · 2004-07-06 01:17 · Score: 4, Informative

Cisco Press books are, without a duobt, the best technical manuals (from a manufacturer) that I have yet read. Anyone who simply bashes on the 'networking academy' crap is doing a serious disservice to the legions of people who have progressed far beyond that simple standard of networking knowledge.

I imagine that a large number of people who have never read Jeff Doyle's "Routing TCP/IP" Vols. I & II, or Kennedy Clark's "Cisco LAN Switching" will comment about this article - read any dense technical manual by either of the above, or Bassam Halabi, or Priscilla Oppenheimer, or any non-entry level book, and see what I mean.

Besides, all of the entry-level Cisco knowledge focuses on the OSI model and BASIC network troubleshooting. If you REALLY wanted to learn that and not be led by the hand thru a technical school, you would read "TCP/IP Illustrated" by W. Richard Stevens.

Re:Cisco books... by w1r3sp33d · 2004-07-06 01:44 · Score: 4, Funny

I can't agree more, Doyle's TCP/IP I&II are two of the best books I have ever read. Don't mod me funny, I am not kidding.

Wow... by GodHead · 2004-07-06 01:34 · Score: 4, Funny

Offering a 5mb file on slashdot...

That takes balls.

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here it is in HTML form by ChrisCampbell47 · 2004-07-06 01:34 · Score: 4, Informative

For those of you who refuse to download MS Word docs off the web (due to virus payload concerns), repeat after me: "Google is your friend"

After clicking on a link below, click on "View as HTML" on the resulting page.

Preface:
http://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sp college.edu%2Fstar%2Fcisco%2FMatt%2Fpreface.doc

Textbook:
http://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sp college.edu%2Fstar%2Fcisco%2FMatt%2Ftextbook.doc *

It's a gigantic HTML file and may give your browser fits, but at least it's not a MS Word doc file.

[* looks like Google hasn't parsed that big doc into HTML yet, maybe they will soon now :) ]

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PDF File by sagenumen · 2004-07-06 02:02 · Score: 5, Informative

I converted the MS Word to a PDF and it is available on my school's server. They are going to hate me:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~mlt3/textbook.pdf

This isn't a new thing....is it? by homerskid · 2004-07-06 02:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

I've been doing this same thing for years now....guess I just never thought to put it up on /. :-)
Several years ago, when I was studying for my certs, I decided to compile all my material into a book.
It has since grown into two separate books, one for the CCNA and one for the CCIE.
While they used to be free, I decided to begin charging a small fee (10 bux), but only enough to cover the costs of my website -- incidentally, I've never really been able to recoup that.

If anyone is interested, the books, along with loads of free material are available (both online and downloadable) at gdd.net.
Please note that I do like for folks to register, but it is free and rather painless ;-).

Save your school by EvilStein · 2004-07-06 03:16 · Score: 4, Informative

here is another mirror, on what is probably a much much faster pipe. :)

(could only squeeze 48K/sec off your school..)

Slashdot Mirror

Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual

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