Free Book on FreeBSD System Programming

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Free Book on FreeBSD System Programming

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @02:05AM from the stuff-to-read dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A new book on BSD system programming has been released. And, in the spirit of open source, the book was released using the GNU Free Documentation License. Anyone interested in system programming on the BSD's can use this."

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Cool! by Sevn · 2004-07-27 02:10 · Score: 1

What an awesome gift idea.

I know I'll be putting this to very good use.

--
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
1. Re:Cool! by vasqzr · 2004-07-27 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  Gift idea?
  
  You can read the book online!
  
  http://www.khmere.com/freebsd_book/index.html
2. Re:Cool! by Bluesman · 2004-07-27 02:42 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Which makes it a cheap gift, too. Just put the link in the card.
  
  --
  If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
well edited :-) by straycheck · 2004-07-27 02:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Chapter 2: Bootsrapping BSD
The irony by darkjedi521 · 2004-07-27 02:48 · Score: 0, Troll

A book on BSD systems programming - released under the GPL!
1. Re:The irony by TilJ · 2004-07-27 02:56 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  The FDL, as the first paragraph states.
  
  I can understand the confusion ... one of the letters in the acronym is the same, I trip over that all the time ;-)
  
  --
  "The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth." -- Bene Gesserit Precept
2. Re:The irony by torstenvl · 2004-07-27 04:02 · Score: 0
  
  From the FDL: "You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it."
  
  This doesn't seem to be in the spirit of BSD. In fact, I think technically this means you can't make notes in the margins and then loan it to a friend without jumping through hoops and letting your friend know that he's allowed by law to cross out, erase, and otherwise annihilate the comments you've made -- as long as when he returns it he gives you the right to put them back. ;-)
  
  Of course, now some American moderator who doesn't understand sarcasm and playful wit will say I'm trolling and mark me down again. Get a life.
3. Re:The irony by Webmonger · 2004-07-27 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  There are arguments that the FDL ain't really Free the way the GPL is.
  
  For instance, if you excerpted a significant portion of this book in another book (say, chapter 2), you'd have to put "Nathan Boeger and Mana Tominaga wrote this book and asks for your support through donation. Contact the authors for more information." on its back cover.
  
  Not only would that be a false statement (because it implies that no one else contributed to the book), but it's gramatically incorrect. Plus, imagine excerpting a whole bunch of FDLed works, each with back cover texts. It's the old-BSD obnoxious advertising clause all over again. So maybe it is an appropriate license...
4. Re:The irony by chaos_echo · 2004-07-27 08:42 · Score: 1
  
  It's the old-BSD obnoxious advertising clause all over again. So maybe it is an appropriate license...
  The BSD advertising clause wouldn't require a false statement, since it uses the wording "... includes software developed by ..." and even then it's only required where you advertise the features of the BSD licensed software.
  All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement:
  This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
  That's not nearly as unreasonable as the FDL
5. Re:The irony by Webmonger · 2004-07-27 09:01 · Score: 1
  
  Right. I was comparing the way that advertising clauses can accumulate to the way back-cover texts can accumulate. And heck, I was making a joke.
6. Re:The irony by darkjedi521 · 2004-07-27 13:20 · Score: 1
  
  I was attempting to get a +1 Funny. Live and learn.
obligatory link to . . . by nusratt · 2004-07-27 03:51 · Score: 0, Offtopic

AC's standard screed on the death and irrelevance of *BSD

(just to spare him the effort of posting it again ;-)
Shameless self-promotion by prostoalex · 2004-07-27 03:55 · Score: 4, Informative

Free programming books published online.
Yuck by addaon · 2004-07-27 04:01 · Score: 3, Informative

Okay, I've only read the Basic and Advanced I/O chapters here, but it doesn't look like there's any material that's not straight from the man pages... certainly no discussion of best practice, or performance ramifications, or any of the other good systems stuff I had hoped to see...

--

I've had this sig for three days.
1. Re:Yuck by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-27 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  So are you saying it isn't worth what you paid for it?
Not much depth here by dru · 2004-07-27 04:40 · Score: 3, Informative

This book reminds me of Marc Rockhind's "Advanced Unix Programming", but is less technical in nature.

The chapter on BSD make was interesting, a topic not usually covered because most people use GNU Make these days.

And the section on kqueue(2) was interesting, although very superficial.

Everything else would be largely familiar to anyone who's familiar with the Unix programming idiom.

As someone who cut his teeth on "The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Operating System", I'm eagerly anticipating McKusick's book on FreeBSD 5.2, to be released in August. http://www.mckusick.com/FreeBSDbook.html
When will publishers stop doing this... by TheTitan · 2004-07-27 05:47 · Score: 1, Troll

Whoever is publishing this book is going to take a bath on the project. I wish whoever did this wouldn't have been so stupid. And to whoever wrote this book, why did you push for a GFDL'ed online book? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Go ask Pearson publishing about this, they and many other publishers have first hand accounts of the failings of the GFDL. Unfortunately, this publisher will probably not write another book about BSD, even though it's the GFDL that is to blame. If Pearson Publishing Group (they own Addison Weseley, Sam, etc.) has a lesson to teach other publishers, it would be that GFDL is the problem, not the content. Hopefully this publisher is all the wiser. Stupid, stupid, stupid. On the bright side, at least this will go down as another failure for GNU and its licenses.... which isn't a bad thing. Hopefully more people will wake up to reality and stop being braindead. *sigh* One can hope. Death to the GPL and friends.

--
-- Sean Chittenden
1. Re:When will publishers stop doing this... by Korpo · 2004-07-28 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  While I to some degree sympathize with your ranting, I mostly feel sympathy for your (overly) ideological views. Maybe this gets a treatable disease one day, too...
  
  Especially since you didn't have a thing to say about the book itself...
But isn't it nice that this can be fixed? by jbn-o · 2004-07-27 12:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

I fail to understand how the parent post is "interesting" (funny, perhaps). I understand the point being made -- the word "bootstrapping" was misspelled -- but that happens. It seems to me that is why the licensing on this book is significant: At least with this book this error can be corrected and reprinted by anyone so readers don't have to live with the error for long. As I read the web page, it looks like there is no error in the table of contents.

It's got to be tough to write a book and not make a minor spelling error. I've never written a book like this so I wouldn't know, but I have read many books (including technical books) with such errors. I read the error, mark it in my notes if I have paper handy, and move on. After reading the book, I often remember to submit my notes to the publisher for future corrections. It seems to me that the remarkably thorough editing and more restrictive licensing terms on these other books I've read do not prevent the errors from occurring. So my notes never result in fixing the book for subsequent readers unless the publisher decides to reprint.

--
Digital Citizen