Amazon Blocks Arch Linux Handbook Author From Releasing Kindle Version

An anonymous reader writes "We've all heard the horror stories of Amazon swindling the user out of their content on the Kindle, but this time they've managed to do it preemptively: by blocking the GFDL licensed Arch Linux Handbook from the Kindle Store." Reasons include: "We’ve reviewed the information you provided and have decided to block these books from being sold in the Kindle Store. The books closely match content that is freely available on the web and we are not confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights. This type of content can create a poor customer experience, and is not accepted. As a result, we have blocked the books listed below from being sold in the Kindle Store." The workaround: he uploaded a mobi copy to the Arch website.

Comments

What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

This summary is confusing! Who is 'he'? When did this happen and who exactly is involved?

Not unreasonable.

[Dyinobal]

TBH I don't think Amazon is being that unreasonable. They've a right to ensure that people enjoy using their site, and their site would be less enjoyable if I had to wade through a bunch of content that is otherwise very easy to find on the rest of the web. Such as his website.

That isn't to say his book doesn't have some original content, but it likely doesn't have a lot of it when it comes down to it and when you start being super inclusive you can really flood the market place with a lot of low quality products.

Does this suck for him? Yes I'm sure it does, but there are plenty of sites out there dedicated to proving hosting to free books.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[pushing-robot]

Agreed. Not that long ago I was reading (on Slashdot) about the scourge of 'authors' that do nothing but spam the Kindle store with content they trawl from the web, and how Amazon desperately needed to crack down. Damned if you do...

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus one.

Remember the 1984 incident ? The "author" of the ebook didn't have the rights.
To make it right, the unauthorized 1984 disappeared from kindles.

It hurt trust in amazon.

They seem to be reasonable here.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[the_B0fh]

You are shitting me right? It was published legally in Canada.

Next, you're going to tell me the publishers of Romeo and Juliet are all illegal.

Oh, wait, you mean all the laws are supposed to be compliant to US laws. That is why you guys are so worried about the UN taking over right?

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

They've a right to ensure that people enjoy using their site, and their site would be less enjoyable if I had to wade through a bunch of content that is otherwise very easy to find on the rest of the web.

Good lord, have you seen some of the crap in the Kindle store? Lots of poorly written stuff that badly needs an editor. And there are titles carefully chosen to make people buy them by mistake.

This is not about content quality. They just don't want people selling content that they can get for free elsewhere — bad customer relations.

(Or is it? Back in 2006, I co-wrote a book for Sun Microsystems. I was well-paid for this work, and I wasn't expecting royalties, but for some strange reason I got them, showing that the book sold reasonably well, despite being available online before the book came out.)

Now, Amazon has every right to do this. But that's just the problem: the Kindle platform is another walled garden. Just as I don't like Steve Jobs telling me I can't have lame iPhone apps, I don't like Jeff Bezos telling me I can't buy lame books. The fact that the app or book is lame is besides the point. The central control is the problem.

If I ever become a sufficiently popular author so that people want to by ebooks written by me (unlikely, alas) I will make sure they're available in portable formats, such as EPub/Adobe. I won't try to prevent them from being available in Kindle format, but I won't stand for an exclusive release,.

Unless, of course, the Kindle starts supporting open formats.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[milkmage]

legally published in Canada means what to electronic distribution in the US (seriously). ... and Romeo and Juliet is in the Public Domain, 1984 - not. (http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/j-r-r-tolkien-george-orwell-removed-from-public-domain_b45725)

and it's not "you guys".. just one fucked up judge (maybe a couple more we don't know about) in Texas thought the UN was going to invade - we're really really sorry about that.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[BLKMGK]

Kindle supports PDF, Mobi, and other formats. Calibre will convert between them and easily allow you to email them to your Kindle. I have no issues sideloading books to my Kindle or my Kindle app on 3 different devices...

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that you can buy "No Safe Harbor" for $9.99 at Amazon (this will support the cause!) while also download it for free at the dedicated No Safe Harbor website. So it's not that the availability "for free" per se it's an issue.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

Yes, you can read all kinds of unprotected files on Kindle. But if you want to buy books on Kindle, you have to go through Amazon.

Whatever one's feelings on DRM, the fact is that 99% of all ebooks available for purchase are DRM protected. If you can make a go of it selling DRM-free books (Pragmatic Bookshelf seems to do OK) good for you, but most publishers will only release titles in a DRM-protected format.

Now, there are two dominant formats for DRM-protected books. There's the Kindle format, which is only supported by Amazon. Then there's the EPub format with Adobe DRM, which is supported by every popular ebook reader except Kindle.

Briefly put, the Kindle ecosystem is a closed garden, the EPUB/Adobe ecosystem is not, and unprotected formats are not a part of either.

I'm aware that people mostly don't mind depending on a closed garden. The popularity of iOS devices and the Kindle demonstrate that. And that indifference to corporate control over their content is precisely what bothers me.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[kelemvor4]

You are shitting me right? It was published legally in Canada.

Next, you're going to tell me the publishers of Romeo and Juliet are all illegal.

Oh, wait, you mean all the laws are supposed to be compliant to US laws. That is why you guys are so worried about the UN taking over right?

We're not worried about the UN taking over because it isn't going to happen. One person trying to sell copies of another person's book does happen, though. Enjoy: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=amazon+1984+incident

Re:Not unreasonable.

[shutdown -p now]

Someone in the comments to that blog post actually referenced the relevant bit from Amazon publishing guidelines:

Public Domain and Other Non-Exclusive Content

Some types of content, such as public domain content, may be free to use by anyone, or may be licensed for use by more than one party. We will not accept content that is freely available on the web unless you are the copyright owner of that content. For example, if you received your book content from a source that allows you and others to re-distribute it, and the content is freely available on the web, we will not accept it for sale on the Kindle store. We do accept public domain content, however we may choose to not sell a public domain book if its content is undifferentiated or barely differentiated from one or more other books.

So it looks like they have already considered it (at least enough so to distinguish between public domain and various free licenses), and decided that it's not worth the bother for them - perhaps because they have estimated that the likelihood of getting involved in some lawsuit over that content, like Apple almost did with VLC for iOS, is too high?

Re:Not unreasonable.

[shutdown -p now]

Whatever one's feelings on DRM, the fact is that 99% of all ebooks in English available for purchase are DRM protected.

FTFY. Luckily for me, for my native language I have a fully legit online store where all books are DRM-free, and are provided in a dozen formats for all imaginable book readers (they even package them up as J2ME midlets for feature phones), including Mobi. What more, they even have a special version of their website that you get redirected to if you open it in Kindle web browser.

Then there's the EPub format with Adobe DRM, which is supported by every popular ebook reader except Kindle.

And iBooks. Which is probably the second most popular reader after Kindle right now.

Then again, it doesn't really matter for someone who reads Slashdot, since Kindle DRM has been circumvented a long time ago, and there are single-click tools to handle it now (IIRC there was one integrated with Calibre, even).

Re:Not unreasonable.

[EGSonikku]

iBooks uses ePub (as well as PDF).

Re:Not unreasonable.

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, it does, but it uses its own DRM scheme, which is incompatible with Adobe's. So you cannot buy DRM'd ePub books elsewhere and read it with iBooks. The other way around is even worse - there's no other app on any platform (not even on OS X) that can open DRM'd iBooks books.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[the_B0fh]

you should double check your lmgtfy link - the first page is full of people talking about amazon's kill switch and nothing about the author issue. Also, you should note that I never claimed the author who packaged it for distribution in Canada is the real author. All I said was that it was published legally in Canada (because the copyright expired in Canada).

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Jiro]

If you look at Amazon's normal bookstore, there is, or at least was until recently, a rash of fakers who automatically generated printouts of Wikipedia articles, titled them with a random title from one of the articles, and sold it as a "book". People constantly complained about these fake books.

Looks like they're trying to prevent that sort of thing,

Re:Not unreasonable.

[jones_supa]

The results can also be seen in search for 'wikipedia' in CDON.fi, where they sell bundles of printed Wikipedia articles. I wonder who actually buys those.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[wvmarle]

It has totally nothing to do with whether users would be paying for a book could be found elsewhere for free. Kindle books can be published as free download, too, and I assume that this was the intention of this submission.

As the summary (have you read it?) correctly states: Amazon has worries about the publisher actually owning publishing rights to the work. They found the same (or very similar) text to be available for download on external web sites, and that is a red flag to them. The submitter could very well have pulled the text from those sites, altered it a bit or maybe not at all, and then submit it to the Kindle Store for resale while they don't have the rights to it.

The solution to get it on the Kindle store: pull the free downloads from other web sites, and resubmit it. That's how Amazon works. They're simply very strict on that matter, as they want to have some certainty that you, submitter, are the one that actually has the rights to publish the work.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fotoguzzi]

You are so right! I would much rather take my desktop and CRT monitor onto the train to read rather than have to revisit the same content on an epaper device. I am glad that they are protecting me from the inconvenience of reading the same thing over and over.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[dzfoo]

Well, let's get something straight: It's a store, not a bazaar.

It is a wall garden in the same sense that going to a retail, brick-and-mortar store is entering a wall garden.

If you want a free-for-all, everybody-bring-whatever-you-want-to-sell, you can go to a flea market or a bazaar or one of those bartering marketplaces in Calcuta, or something. Most people go to stores because they trust the quality of the experience and the goods, which involves a reasonable amount of control over what articles to put up in shelves.

Note that Amazon will not prevent you from acquiring such e-books from external sources and loading them up in your Kindle; that's your problem. However, they don't seem willing to turn their store into a wholesale repository for re-prints of Wikipedia articles; online forum threads; or even works in the public domain retrieved verbatim from Project Gutenberg, with no adornment or specific added value above the many that came before.

If calling that a "walled-garden" gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling of superiority, then go ahead. However, consider the same thing whenever you go next to your grocery store, clothing store, convenience store, or any other store. Or do you shunt those too for not offering every single do-dad made by Tom, Dick, or Harry from who-knows-where?

            -dZ.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[drinkypoo]

Yes, you can read all kinds of unprotected files on Kindle. But if you want to buy books on Kindle, you have to go through Amazon.

Only if you want to buy books through the Kindle app. There are other ways to make book purchases on your Kindle. The same is true but in reverse of my Nook Simple Touch. I have rooted it, and it has Kindle installed. Now I can use both stores.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

It is a wall garden in the same sense that going to a retail, brick-and-mortar store is entering a wall garden.

Here's an important difference: if you don't like the physical books at one B&M bookstore you can go to another. If you don't like the Kindle books at Amazon, you can go to hello.

If you're looking for a parallel to a B&M bookstore for your ebooks, then you need an ebook reader that doesn't lock you into a specific vendor.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

There are other ways to make book purchases on your Kindle.

Such as?

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Daemonik]

Gee, you mean a US company doing business in the US has to obey US laws?? Incredible!!

Or should they flip a coin to see what country's insane legal babble will we obey today approach?

Re:Not unreasonable.

[dzfoo]

It doesn't lock you to a specific vendor: you are free to install e-books from other stores into your Kindle.

When you go to a B&N bookstore, you can only purchase books sold by B&N. You can go to a different store, purchase any sort of books yourself, and take them with you to read at the coffee bar within the B&N bookstore.

The Kindle device is an Amazon device, so it sells items from the Amazon store. It does not prevent you from using the device from reading material obtained from outside parties.

More to the point, if you don't like the Amazon device, you are free to purchase a different one.

How is this so hard to comprehend? You haven't a God-given right to have stores stock themselves with whatever you want--but you do have a legal right to purchase your items from whomever you want, or to not purchase them at all.

            -dZ.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Daemonik]

Briefly put, the Kindle ecosystem is a closed garden, the EPUB/Adobe ecosystem is not, and unprotected formats are not a part of either.

I don't think Kindle counts as a closed system either, since their Kindle App runs on any PC Desktop, Macs, iOS & Android. If you had to buy a Kindle device to read MOBI books, then I would agree.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Daemonik]

There are solutions for this, it's called offline reading. Or you can scrape the wiki and convert it to an ebook yourself for free.

Don't let facts stop your warblegarble though.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[msclrhd]

So would that mean that Amazon would prevent the author(s) of the XKCD, Girl Genius, The Oatmeal and other online comics from selling collections of their comics through the Amazon store just because you can get them for free online? Or someone publishing a novel or manual that was serialized on the author's blog or a free online story site.

If that is the case, Amazon is blocking those authors from a potential revenue stream.

If the case is that the book contains work by authors other than those publishing it (e.g. publishing wikipedia articles) and Amazon are only blocking those, I can understand Amazon's permission.

It gets interesting if wikipedia, arch linux or canonical/ubuntu publish Creative Commons material to raise funds for that project, not a random developer working on one of those wiki pages.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

So, if I don't have a Kindle, I can still get Kindle books. All the more reason not to be locked in.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

It doesn't lock you to a specific vendor: you are free to install e-books from other stores into your Kindle.

As long as it's in a format that Kindle can open. One more time: most publishers only provide books in a DRMed format. Which DRMed formats does Kindle support? Their own.

When you go to a B&N bookstore, you can only purchase books sold by B&N.

Visiting a B&N doesn't lock me into buying B&N books. Buying a Kindle locks me into to buying ebooks from Amazon. And, not incidentally, buying a B&N ebook reader does not lock me into buying ebooks from B&N, because they use a standard format supported by multiple devices and retailers.

More to the point, if you don't like the Amazon device, you are free to purchase a different one.

And if I don't like my new cult, I'm free to leave — as long as I do so before they serve the Koolaid.

You haven't a God-given right to have stores stock themselves with whatever you want-

Perfectly true. And that's why I don't like walled gardens, because the owner of the garden does have a God-given right to tell me what I can do there.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

More to the point, if you don't like the Amazon device, you are free to purchase a different one.

(Trying again with a snark-free answer.)

Sounds like a good plan. But it only works if books are available in open formats. Which is why I want ebook authors not to sign exclusive distribution agreements with Amazon (as I've already said).

Re:Not unreasonable.

[dzfoo]

Agreed. To that point, and to the other responder's: that is a problem with the publisher, not Amazon.

If your favorite e-books are DRM-encumbered, preventing you from reading them on your device of choice; take it up with the publisher or author, not with the device manufacturer.

        dZ.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[Daemonik]

Do you grasp the concept of "locked in"?

Locked in would be if you could only and exclusively read a specific ebook on a Kindle device. The fact that you can read Kindle ebooks on numerous devices with no connection to Amazon is the antithesis of locked in sir. ie The Exact Opposite.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[the_B0fh]

Gee, you mean a canadian person publishing in Canada and offering it for sale in Canada had to obey US laws? Incredible.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

Sigh. Once again, you're arguing with things I did not say.

I don't have any problems with books being DRM-encumbered. I have problems with the fact a device manufactured by a ebook retailer does not support an DRM-enabled format except the retailer's own. Which is why I am refusing to buy that device, discouraging other people from doing so, and discouraging authors from signing exclusive deals with that retailer.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

Sure, if I don't own a Kindle I'm not locked into Amazon. So what? When I talk about lockin, I'm talking about the lockin of Kindle owner, who can only buy content from Amazon.

This discussion seems to consist of people attacking statements I did not make. You seem to think that I said that Amazon is evil or should be forced to carry everything, or something like that. I never said any of that. I only said that they're running a walled garden, that I don't think people should buy a device that locks them into a walled garden, and that authors should not make their content exclusively available in a specific walled garden

Re:Not unreasonable.

[dzfoo]

No, I am arguing exactly the point you are trying to make:

I have problems with the fact a device manufactured by a ebook retailer does not support an DRM-enabled format except the retailer's own.

Why is it the manufacturer's problem when third-party publishers want to use proprietary DRM mechanisms that are not supported?

The problem is not the lack of support with DRM--it is DRM itself.

I think you misunderstand the drive to DRM. It is "Digital Rights Management," and the owner of such rights is the author or publisher, not the device manufacturer. The publisher is the one requiring and perpetuating the use of DRM, not the manufacturer. Your argument suggests that the manufacturer is imposing DRM restrictions on publishers for the sake of lock-in, when in fact it has been well established that the DRM requirements are imposed by the rights owners.

Think about what happened with music. Sure, everybody in Slashdot was complaining that Apple were pushing for their own proprietary copy-protection of songs in order to force everybody into using iTunes and iPods. (This ignores the fact that you could rip and export easily without DRM from the ecosystem, but that's another story.) When the music industry deemed it in their own interest to reduce their enforcement of DRM, Apple and Amazon started offering unprotected music without a problem. No "lock-in," no enforcement of DRM, yet people still buy from iTunes or Amazon.

The fundamental flaw in your argument, as I see it, is that you are viewing DRM as a manufacturer's lock-in artifact, when it is a pubisher's requirement.

              -dZ.

Re:Not unreasonable.

[fm6]

Why is it the manufacturer's problem when third-party publishers want to use proprietary DRM mechanisms that are not supported?

Because it's straightforward attempt to create a monopoly.

But I'm not even talking about what Amazon is doing right and wrong. (How many times do I have to say that?) I'm talking about how consumers and authors should respond to Amazon's attempt at creating a monopoly. Consumers should respond by buying devices that don't lock them into Amazon's walled garden. Authors should respond by not signing exclusive distribution deals with Amazon.

Unfortunately, that's not happening: the Kindle is dominating the ebook marketplace, and authors can't resist Amazon's incentives. So the monopoly is pretty much here. And *that* is my point, not all the other crap you're choosing to read into my arguments.

I think you misunderstand ....

Please don't lecture me on what I don't understand until *you* make an effort to understand my argument.

Good - Trying to block spam

[ZombieBraintrust]

There is all kinds of spam in these bookstores. People go out and grab open licenced content and then package it as an ebook and try to sell it for $0.99 You wind up with 20 ebooks for The Tale of Two Cities listed in catagories like romance or science fiction. Makes the new release section a joke. On B&N there was once a problem where a publisher was selling machine generated books sourced from wikipedia.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the people who would rather buy a copy, as opposed to using a search engine? They are a big market to capture. its not about the customer, its about the target consumer.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[ZombieBraintrust]

They allowed it at first. But spammers ruined it. Amazon is perfectly happy hosting one copy of Arch Linux Handbook. They simply don't want to host 25 versions of it. So they require that you prove you are the only one permitted to publish the book. They don't want each contributor to the book selling their own version on Amazon. They also don't want spammers who have nothing to do with the book selling it on Amazon. They also had issues where spammers would add Advertisements into the book. You might get past chapter one and then find an add for a penny stock. They had search engine optimization firms putting links into public domain books to effect search results. Lots of returns and angry phone calls later we have this policy.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[icebike]

The Consumer IS the Customer, so I'm totally confused as to what your point was.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[PvtVoid]

There is all kinds of spam in these bookstores. People go out and grab open licenced content and then package it as an ebook and try to sell it for $0.99.

Except that isn't what what the author was actually doing. From TFA:

"I have had a handful of requests that the Arch Linux Handbook be made available for the Kindle platform. It seemed like an odd request, given that the latest version of the Beginners’ Guide is already freely available in electronic format online. However, I had some free time this week and tried the conversion. It wasn’t difficult and I uploaded a version of the Handbook to the Kindle app store"

This seems entirely reasonable, and absolutely nothing like the spamming you describe. And it was fully compatible with the license on the material, which is specifically intended to facilitate exactly this kind of use. So why was Amazon equating the two?

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[EzInKy]

This is free material, so what does buying or markets have anything to do with it? The only real question is whether Amazon is willing to host the information or not.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[EzInKy]

Consumers consume, customers custom. The first consumes, the second customs. For clarification:

Consume: To expend; use up

Custom: A habitual practice

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[ZombieBraintrust]

Sure, but how does Amazon identify who is a spammer and who is isn't? Anyone can do what he did. Anyone can go to his site and copy paste the contents into an ebook. How do they pick what contributor of a wiki gets to sell a book in their store? They only want one copy for sale.

we are not confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights

Seems like Amazon wasn't sure he was the author.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[1u3hr]

"I have had a handful of requests that the Arch Linux Handbook be made available for the Kindle platform. It seemed like an odd request, given that the latest version of the Beginnersâ(TM) Guide is already freely available in electronic format online. However, I had some free time this week and tried the conversion. It wasnâ(TM)t difficult and I uploaded a version of the Handbook to the Kindle app store" This seems entirely reasonable, and absolutely nothing like the spamming you describe.

It is exactly the same as many "Kindle spammers" do. Copy slabs of text from a wiki, Project Gutenberg, wherever, convert to Kindle format (quick and dirty), upload to Amazon, write a description that entices the reader to buy it (the only creative part of the process), sell for 99 cents.

Amazon seems to search for the text online and found it. Quite likely actually a bunch of real spammers had already tried to upload exactly the same text earlier and been blocked.

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[Artifakt]

Moreover, the two denote a different set of relationships in economics:

X is a customer - she makes it her customary practice to do business with Y. If she stops liking the way Y does business, she can change her practice. This name for a person making purchases does not presume much. For example, it doesn't assume that X shops where she does from habit - she may have carefully analysed the market and be ready to switch very quickly, or may have considerable mental inertia (buying habits), but Y does not know.

X is a consumer - X is the end user for the product or service. Even though our Ms. X is overwhelmingly likely to have gained the money to pay for that good in her role as a producer or agent of a producer, Y gets to ignore that, go Galt, and feel all virtuous and superior in his relationship with X. Y labels himself as the Producer, and his customers as Consumers, as though these relationships hold invariably. This leads to business who would claim that they are the Producer who just got a government bailout funded largely by the Consumers. (as Rand would say "Blank Out.").

Re:Good - Trying to block spam

[93 Escort Wagon]

They also had issues where spammers would add Advertisements into the book.

We can't have that - adding advertisements to e-books is Amazon's exclusive province!

bad link

[shadesOG]

The last link to the mobi version is incorrect.

Re:bad link

[Bill Evans]

The correct link seems to be: http://archlinux.ca/arch_linux_handbook_3.mobi

Re:bad link

[Nostrada]

Someone wanna fix this?

Arch Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, Arch Linux, the operating system where people brag about their superiority even though it comes down to copy/pasting commands from a wiki without understanding what the hell they even do. Who woulda thunk that the first published book is just a copy/paste of other people's work?

Re:Arch Linux

[vigour]

Ah yes, Arch Linux, the operating system where people brag about their superiority even though it comes down to copy/pasting commands from a wiki without understanding what the hell they even do. Who woulda thunk that the first published book is just a copy/paste of other people's work?

Sadly you're right. I moved to Arch from FreeBSD four years ago and I was amazed at the amount of clueless arrogant fanboys which diluted the signal-to-noise of the people who know what they're talking about. Don't get me wrong, I love Arch and I still use it over any other distro on my personally owned PCs, but you're right that some of the community are idiots, especially the zealous, newish members who can't take any criticism of Arch.

Re:Arch Linux

[serviscope_minor]

but you're right that some of the community are idiots,

I think you win today's internet for the most obvious comment it is possible to make.

Seriously, this applies to any community.

He's not even the author

[recoiledsnake]

Summary incorrectly states that he's the author. He only did some editing, the content was written by the community.

Re:He's not even the author

[icebike]

Exactly. He at most, packaged the wiki, no doubt cleaning some things up a bit along the way.

B&N has a similar self-publish program called Pubit.
When it was first introduced it was flooded with ebooks that were merely a couple paragraphs of wrapper around public domain books. I saw one such pubit book that still has the Project Gutenberg trailers attached.

B&N, and I suspect Amazon, has since modified the TOS to require that the "authors" at least hold the copyright to the vast majority of the submitted work.

The GFDL does allow him to do what he did. But Amazon doesn't have to be a party to this sort of thing.

They told him exactly why they rejected it:

The books closely match content that is freely available on the web and we are not confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights. This type of content can create a poor customer experience, and is not accepted.

Exclusive publishing rights. Just like B&N, they want their program to be something more than simple wrappers around public domain content.
That's their choice. He has other alternatives for distribution, and has decided to GIVE it away.

Re:He's not even the author

[adolf]

B&N, and I suspect Amazon, has since modified the TOS to require that the "authors" at least hold the copyright to the vast majority of the submitted work.

The GFDL does allow him to do what he did. But Amazon doesn't have to be a party to this sort of thing.

I wonder, then: Should Shakespeare's work be allowed in the Kindle store? Nobody holds exclusive publishing rights, and it's freely available on the web.

Re:He's not even the author

[bcrowell]

Exclusive publishing rights. Just like B&N, they want their program to be something more than simple wrappers around public domain content.
That's their choice. He has other alternatives for distribution, and has decided to GIVE it away.

This particular case has a lot of features that will make people sympathize more with Amazon and less with the author. But there are many other cases where the facts are different. As an example, I'm the author of some math and physics books that are licensed under CC-BY-SA, free in LaTeX, PDF, and HTML formats, and also available in print. I'm essentially the sole author, although I do have material in the books such as photos from wikimedia commons. I basically operate on a nonprofit basis, but I do have significant webhosting expenses. (The PDF files are a lot of megabytes, and a lot of people download them, so I can't use el cheapo webhosts.) I don't mind making a few bucks here and there to offset those expenses. I looked into selling my books on amazon for, say, $0.99, in kindle format. Well, one thing I immediately learned is that ebook formats and readers don't have good enough support for math to do a good job on books with a lot of math in them. But anyway, there were also two showstoppers: (1) amazon requires exclusivity, and (2) this: "You must set your Digital Book's List Price (and change it from time-to-time if necessary) so that it is no higher than the list price in any sales channel for any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book." So for a book that is free in any format, amazon is not an option. OK, you don't have to cue the world's smallest violin. It's not a huge tragedy for me that I can't sell on amazon. But slashdotters might find that the facts of my situation evoke a different feeling in their fuzzy little free-information-loving hearts than the facts of the one in TFA.

Yes, it's also true that in a free-enterprise system, we don't expect to be able to tell a company that they have any moral or legal duty to sell a product that they don't want to sell. However, it's worth bearing in mind that amazon is very close to being a monopolist in the ebook business. If someone held a monopoly on paper, we probably would be a little concerned if they started refusing to sell various broad categories of books.

Re:He's not even the author

[shutdown -p now]

They actually document this in KDP FAQ as well, so he should have known in advance:

Public Domain and Other Non-Exclusive Content

Some types of content, such as public domain content, may be free to use by anyone, or may be licensed for use by more than one party. We will not accept content that is freely available on the web unless you are the copyright owner of that content. For example, if you received your book content from a source that allows you and others to re-distribute it, and the content is freely available on the web, we will not accept it for sale on the Kindle store. We do accept public domain content, however we may choose to not sell a public domain book if its content is undifferentiated or barely differentiated from one or more other books.

Re:He's not even the author

[shutdown -p now]

They make an explicit exception for public domain, so yes, it would be allowed.

Re:He's not even the author

[icebike]

It seems there is a misunderstanding about those two terms you quoted.

If the first is true, but second would be unnecessary.

If the second is true then the can not be insisting on exclusivity.

Further, a free download is not a sales channel. So number two may not apply. That would be like saying if you ever once give away a copy you must forever give it away on Amazon.

Re:He's not even the author

[Wovel]

Amazon does not require exclusivity...

Re:He's not even the author

[bcrowell]

Amazon does not require exclusivity...

"When you include a Digital Book in KDP Select, you give us the exclusive right to sell and distribute your Digital Book in digital format while your book is in KDP Select."

Maybe my info is out of date? Maybe KDP select is different than the program you had in mind?

Re:He's not even the author

[julesh]

KDP Select is not the regular kindle publishing channel -- it's a system for making payments to authors who offer free time-limited downloads. I'm pretty sure GP was talking about regular KDP.

Re:He's not even the author

[schizz69]

I agree whole heartedly. In order for the 'masses' to truely benefit from a diverse yet quality experience, they do need to perform some sort of quality control. Think about your local book store, they pick and choose the material they stock to appeal to the widest audience, if that means not stocking (largely) freely available information, it is really just their business decision to make.

Re:He's not even the author

[Sigg3.net]

Amazon and B&N have a separate task force whose only mission is to gather the legal consent of an infinite number of monkeys. So yes, they're in the clear.

Re:He's not even the author

[FireFury03]

Why should public domain content be given preferential treatment over permissively licensed content?

Re:He's not even the author

[FireFury03]

In order for the 'masses' to truely benefit from a diverse yet quality experience, they do need to perform some sort of quality control. Think about your local book store, they pick and choose the material they stock to appeal to the widest audience, if that means not stocking (largely) freely available information, it is really just their business decision to make.

However, if you went into your local book store and specifically asked for a published book they don't stock, they would order it in for you. Amazon, on the other hand, are actually refusing to publish some content. Maybe they need to separate the publishing and selling business - i.e. allow anything to be published, but don't necessarilly include it in search results (so, for example, it could still be linked from the author's website)

Re:He's not even the author

[shutdown -p now]

You'll have to ask Amazon. Perhaps it's because their lawyers grok public domain, but not the more intricate copyleft licenses like GFDL or CC-BY-SA. Or perhaps they see some potential legal risks there. Or perhaps they are just trolling.

Re:He's not even the author

[stephanruby]

I think we all got scammed here on Slashdot. I'm willing to bet this Dusty Phillips is the one who originally submitted the story anonymously to Slashdot. Here is why I'd think that.

Summary incorrectly states that he's the author. He only did some editing, the content was written by the community.

Correction: For the paperback version, he did not do **any** editing whatsoever.

Here is the only customer review for his book in paperback version.

What I was hoping for in this book was a little better laid out and explained version of the tutorial from Arch's website. What I received is a verbatim printed version of the website in a pocket sized soft cover book. I wanted a printed version that I could follow along with, and had considered just printing the website in the first place. At least for $11 the book might have cost less than it would have to print out all those pages on my own. Ink is expensive! My biggest complain is that it really is word for word from the website. For example, the VERY FIRST PAGE has an underlined hyper-link to go for more info. Go ahead, try and click it... I dare you

You can actually confirm this by going to his book and 'click[ing] to look inside'. The book is horribly edited. The table of content is misaligned. It's just a very poor print out of the wiki site with blue links all over the place.

Furthermore, he's listed on Amazon for the paperback version of the book as its sole author, which is a listing he has complete control over. And no, I'm not talking about the cover of the book, or inside the book, I'm talking about the way he listed himself in the Amazon index, which is the part almost everyone sees even if most never take a close look at anything else. And yes, even if he didn't want to list Aaron Griffin and Judd Vinet as the main authors/original copyright holders of this work on Amazon, it is indeed possible to list himself as an (editor) only, for instance just like these guys did with the Richard Feynmans' letters.

Re:He's not even the author

[LifeIs0x2A]

That's great books you made there! Did you create these from your teaching material? Must have been A LOT of work you are giving away for free here. Anyway, good on you!

Re:He's not even the author

[dzfoo]

B&N has a similar self-publish program called Pubit.

Pubit? Is that really... Pube... It...?

Tsk! Tsk!

Re:He's not even the author

[serviscope_minor]

If your files are large and your hosting costs are significant, have you considered making them available on bittorrent?

Re:He's not even the author

[Daemonik]

One, when someone sells a copy of Shakespeare in Amazon they don't claim to be the author, they're just the publisher. You won't find 50 people all claiming to have written these wicked sonnets yo, misleading customers into buying multiple copies of the same work.

When "packagers", I hesitate to even call them publishers and screw the OP for calling this guy an author, try doing this to wiki's you get the problem that the wiki material quickly becomes outdated, and those 50 people from above each claim to be the author of the material. So customers looking for books buy 2 or 3, discover they're all just copies and do you think they demand money back from the 'authors'? Oh no, it's Amazon that scammed them somehow, not these douches. It's Amazon who has to return the money, setup a system to deal with irate customers. It's Amazon that has to deal with one of those 50 authors bringing a suit to make Amazon stop selling the other 49 because it's "unfair" competition with his/her business.

So yeah, I have no issues with anything Amazon's done here.

Re:He's not even the author

[Daemonik]

(1) amazon requires exclusivity

Before people get their knickers in a twist about this, it doesn't mean exclusivity ie. Amazon must be the only source for this book, it means exclusivity ie. YOU, the author/publisher must be the only source for the book. They don't want to deal with legal tussles over who owns what and how much of the cut they should get.

Nothing to see here.

(2) this: "You must set your Digital Book's List Price (and change it from time-to-time if necessary) so that it is no higher than the list price in any sales channel for any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book." So for a book that is free in any format, amazon is not an option.

Let me fix this for you "For a book that is free in any format YOU MAY NOT ALSO SELL IT FOR PROFIT ON AMAZON.

But slashdotters might find that the facts of my situation evoke a different feeling in their fuzzy little free-information-loving hearts than the facts of the one in TFA.

Not really dude. Because when someone buys your book for $0.99 on Amazon and then writes a big huge blog about how Amazon scammed them because they just found out the books were free from another website, you're not the one who's on the hook there, Amazon is. You're not the one who has to do damage control, call out the lawyers and the publicity spin-doctors, because your $0.99 book is effecting their entire business.

Frankly there is nothing stopping you from publishing the book in MOBI & EPUB formats (what do you have against Nook?) and setting up a pay what you like website. So no, no violins for you.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that amazon is very close to being a monopolist in the ebook business. If someone held a monopoly on paper, we probably would be a little concerned if they started refusing to sell various broad categories of books.

Weird, I could have sworn there were iPods/iPads/iPhones/Nooks/Sony Ereaders/A billion Android devices out there, and that there were about a gazillion web shopping cart systems to setup a retail channel, from hosting your own to we'll do all the work for you setups. I was sure that MOBI & EPUB were published standards that anyone can create ebooks with with software like Calibre.

Amazon is not the only source for ebooks. They're the most well known, possibly, but they are not the only source. Take your hyperbole somewhere else.

Re:He's not even the author

[Daemonik]

In KDP Select, Amazon is in effect becoming the publisher of the work, not simply the distributor. That means they may do additional marketing or republish in different formats for you, ie paperbacks & hardcovers, if the market shows a demand. It is not unusual for publishers to decide which channels a book is sold through, rather than the author.

Re:He's not even the author

[MikeBabcock]

Because with public domain content nobody can get sued. There's no Copyright left to deal with. With GFDL or other permissive licenses, there are still Copyright toes to step on, and while if everyone plays nice if should go fine, not everyone always plays nice.

Re:He's not even the author

[assassinator42]

Since the books are licensed under Creative Commons, you can upload them to archive.org (see here) and redirect your users there to download.

All he had to do...

[spottedkangaroo]

... was document that he held the copyright or that he had permission to publish it.

This is standard procedure actually. You have to show that you hold the copyright or they won't publish it. I published a book for an author of a book that's been on the web for years. He (the author) had to fully document that he wrote it or they would have pulled the book -- despite the fact that we had a contract agreement that I was supposed to publish it. They insisted that only the copyright holder can publish under the model we had selected and they made him document it. That policy actually makes sense. There's like 6,000 copies of most public domain books, most of which are easier to read or better formatted for the web.

More importantly

[betterunixthanunix]

Nothing stops someone from sideloading books onto their Kindle. Amazon does indeed have a right to decide what they will or will not sell in their own store, as long as Kindle users have other options -- which they have. I see little to take issue with here.

Re:More importantly

[icebike]

Well, you could take issue with the perfectly HORRIBLE job of conversion to mobi that he did.
Find the download a the end of his rant. Compare it to the on-line wiki that he sourced.

Pathetic.

Re:More importantly

[BLKMGK]

They even provide an email address for users to send content to their device. I use it for Mobi books all the time!

Re:More importantly

[shutdown -p now]

The neat trick with those Kindle email addresses is that at some point, they've changed it from merely pushing the book directly to your device, they push the book to their "Kindle cloud" first, and from there to the device. If you only have one Kindle (and I'm being inclusive here and counting all devices that run the Kindle app), the only difference that makes is that it'll show up in "Archived Items", and you'll be able to re-download it if you deleted it.

However, when you have more than one device, not only you can get the book onto all of them like that, but it also enables the cloud sync feature for current position, bookmarks, notes etc that normally work for books you get from Kindle Store. Which is very useful when e.g. you read from a full-size Kindle at home, but occasionally also want to continue reading from where you left off on your smartphone - say, while waiting in a queue somewhere. This doesn't work on all platforms Kindle app is available on, but it does work on all their devices, on iOS, and on Android - which probably covers 99% of their userbase.

In fact, you can just get Kindle app and ignore their store altogether, only using your Amazon account to set up sync for your books.

Re:More importantly

[BLKMGK]

Completely correct and is exactly the experience I enjoy! However on a darker side I cannot help but think that Amazon now knows all of my reading habits and just exactly how fast I read any particular book....

Re:More importantly

[zippthorne]

Nook did that from day 1...

And supported ePub natively

And allowed 1 two-week lend to 1 other device

And could be used with overdrive, which is the craptastic way libraries are dealing with ebooks

And had a neat gimmick to transition away from the blackberry "take up half the space with a crappy keyboard" paradigm *.

* in practice, this didn't work so great the first iteration, but fortunately you only need to type in stuff every few hundred pages (the next book you want..)

And yet people continue to talk about the kindle like it's the only eReader out there. That is the real danger.

Re:More importantly

[shutdown -p now]

Nook does not sync current position in the book between their device and the app (at least on Android). At least it didn't last time I tried it, which was a couple month ago when GlowTouch was released.

Re:More importantly

[shutdown -p now]

Well, I have "Mein Kampf", "Das Kapital" and Breivik's "Manifesto" on mine, among other things. Given that the Feds haven't knocked my door down yet, I figure they aren't really interested much.

Re:More importantly

[Wovel]

You should know that nearly everything in his post was just made up out of thin air.

Re:More importantly

[bickerdyke]

They're still fighting about exactly WHICH extremism department gets the right to raid your house...

SYou should check the sewers below your house. You might here the faint noise of the raid teams battling as in the movie we all know...

Re:More importantly

[CountBrass]

I think you need to check the sewers under your house, I expect you'll find grammar nazis, the syntax police and the spelling fairy down there arguing over who gets to tear you a new one first ;)

Fixed that link for you

[tezbobobo]

Book download link was broken - here's the correct url: http://archlinux.ca/arch_linux_handbook_3.mobi

Re:Fixed that link for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really what he tried to publish? The title is wrong in the file, the formatting is horrid, and it's actually hard to read.

Whatever script was used to create this is horribly broken. It's no wonder it triggers Amazon's "this is spam" filter.

Re:Was he trying to sell the Kindle version?

[ZombieBraintrust]

Amazon doesn't allow you to sell your book free. The minimum price is $0.99. They want a cut of the sales. 30% of free is $0.00. They don't want to lose money on your free book. I think they allow promotions for a limited time.

Too Many Hephaestus/Content Scrapped Listings

[Nova Express]

Good! Amazon has recently suffered from a severe problem in that companies like Hephaestus Press and Webster’s Digital Services have created "books" out of scraping public domain content like Wikipedia and slapping them between two covers (or digital equivalent thereof) and putting deceptive titles on them. For example, Hephaestus published the book Novels By Jerry Pournelle, including: The Legacy Of Heorot, The Mote In God’s Eye, The Gripping Hand, Footfall, Inferno (novel), Fallen Angels Starswarm, which looks like an omnibus edition, but which is actually scrapped Wikipedia content.

Sounds like they're finally cracking down on this practice, which is a good thing.

Re:Who cares? Kindle Blows! IPHONE 5 HAS QUAD CORE

[R3d M3rcury]

True. But you still can't sit in the sunshine and read a book on it.

DRM is the problem?

[hawguy]

Some comments on the linked-to site question whether it's even allowable for Amazon to make the content available as a DRM encumbered Kindle eBook, because of this clause in the GFDL:

You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.

Not it being freely available, but *licensing*?

[WolphFang]

Yes, I am sure it is *not* the fact that his content was free elsewhere, but more likely the weak association with the rights of the work. I have two books published in KF8 format, (http://goo.gl/DkR4T) and (http://goo.gl/r6oDN), both also available as free non-KF8 epub/pdf downloads, and Amazon sent me a query as to the RIGHTS as (using some automated system I presume) they detected that the content was available elsewhere for free. I responded appropriately, as the primary copyright holder, and my material has remained published accordingly. And for those worried about GPL, etc, content, as the author, you can specify NO DRM!

Re:Not it being freely available, but *licensing*?

[serviscope_minor]

Yes, I am sure it is *not* the fact that his content was free elsewhere, but more likely the weak association with the rights of the work.

No, I think it is the former, not the latter.

They wanted to stamp down on infinte duplicates of free content with a bit of random crud added spamming the store for $0.99.

It's not a locked platform and you can load content from any source, so filtering isn't really bad.

There's not all that much point in having free cotent on the store. The guy's made it available from the Arch website in the correct format, so any kindle user can go and get it from the official source anyway.

Re:Are they gonna block love books

[future assassin]

You can't tell the difference between love and porn?

Hope you never meet anyone I care about.

too late my son.

Amazon doesn't make you use DRM

[sirwired]

DRM is optional for Kindle books sold on Amazon. They do not require it's use; it's up to the Author.

Re:Amazon doesn't make you use DRM

[hawguy]

DRM is optional for Kindle books sold on Amazon. They do not require it's use; it's up to the Author.

Is a DRM-free .azw file the same as a .mobi file or will it only work on a Kindle?

Re:Amazon doesn't make you use DRM

[1u3hr]

Is a DRM-free .azw file the same as a .mobi file or will it only work on a Kindle?

I think you can just rename it to .mobi and mobi readers can then read it.

Re:Amazon doesn't make you use DRM

[1u3hr]

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but I'll take it at face value.

As far as I know ".azw" files are in MOBI format. Encrypted ones can only be read by Amazon software with the password. Probably generic MOBI readers can read unencrypted ones, but may need to be persuaded to try if it has a different extension.

Also Amazon has recently updated their format, adding some features, so older MOBI readers might not read them properly, though they should still display the text, if not formatting such as tables correctly.

Re:Amazon doesn't make you use DRM

[spottedkangaroo]

I'm under the impression that the current azw format is a mobi with hooks for the generation 1 kindles that do prc (palm III format) only. So your standard reader can read them, yes, by finding either the prc header or the mobi header. If it's encrypted, no so much, but yeah. it can read them.

Re:Are they gonna block love books

[ThatsMyNick]

Well played, sir!

Lend you ereader not your ebook

[ZombieBraintrust]

Or you could just lend your brother your kindle. Then he can read your books without doing all of the above. Also DRM is optional on Amazon.(the author chooses if DRM is used)

Re:Lend you ereader not your ebook

[Havenwar]

I don't care about lending books, but I do have to point out that your argument has a glaring hole in it: It's more akin to saying "If you want to lend your brother a book, just let him take over your house for a few weeks."

Or at the very least the library room, if you have a dedicated ereader. So you're comparing apples and oranges, under no circumstances could that be seen as an acceptable replacement for those that actually do engage in book-lending.

Re:Lend you ereader not your ebook

[ZombieBraintrust]

Ereaders are cheap. So it is not the same as lending your house. More like lending a power tool. You can have multiple devices on an account so it is not like lending your exclusive access to all your books. If you have a generation 1 kindle and a tablet then lending out the kindle is no big deal. Nothing like lending out a room or lending out a house.

Re:Lend you ereader not your ebook

[Havenwar]

It is indeed like lending exclusive access to your books since most people don't bother to have multiple ereaders. But sure, let's amend it then: it's like giving your brother your house for a week while you can still read your books... with binoculars through the window. I have an eink ereader specifically because I don't like reading 600+ pages a day on the laptop screen, and because tablets and phone screens are simply way inferior. Lending my ereader to someone else would significantly impact my life, way past the loss of one book.

Still not acceptable, still not logically anywhere near the same as lending ONE book. The device might be cheap, but the function it provides is akin to full (and for most people more or less exclusive) access to your personal library. My cellphone is pretty cheap too, but it contains my contact lists, my calendars, and is the main method of contacting me. The price of a device does not equal its utilitarian value.

Just like any other publisher

[kriston]

Just like any other publisher, Amazon does not want to dilute the value of its market offerings by reselling content that is available freely elsewhere.

Note that this does not stop Barnes & Noble Nook store from providing compilations of public-domain works. The downloadable products do say that they are freely available from Project Guutenberg or otherwise, but the easy access to a collection of 20 or 50 works at $0.99 is an undeniable value.

Too bad that this author couldn't spin it that way, because most of these public-domain compilations are available on the Kindle, too.

I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Taco Cowboy]

This is not an Amazon vs Linux case

It's a case of Amazon refusing to sell a "book" that was essentially written by a community, that can be gotten online for free (it's wiki stuffs).

And that "author" of that "book" happens to be a "packager", not an "author" in the truest sense.

I dunno what's going on with Slashdot lately.

Truly, I don't !! And I've been visiting Slashdot for a long-long-time !

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[humanrev]

I dunno what's going on with Slashdot lately.

The people running Slashdot are trolls, examples of the worst characteristics of journalism that we see many times elsewhere but can't understand why such behavior exists on a site supposedly for geeks (who we've been conditioned to believe are smarter than everyone else). They know that a Linux vs multinational corporation story (no matter how baselesss and inaccurate it is) will pull the emotional strings of people who see the existence of Linux as a fight against the "man".

Why do you think those multiple "Linux desktop is dead" stories which were posted here in the last few weeks garnered so many comments? I find it interesting that ArsTechnica has not posted a SINGLE story regarding this supposedly controversial issue. Maybe because they already know the Linux desktop is dead and don't see the point in beating a dead horse, I dunno. But Slashdot is ripe with people believing that phantom possibility so it gets posted here. And people eat it all up. So the folks running this place keep posting such stories because we're all idiots. :)

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon has also been under a lot of pressure to clean up the mountains of garbage that gets bundled up from online resources and sold in their bookstore as actual books. People will try just about any shady thing to make $3.

I have no doubt that this particular reference is good enough to be called a book. And I imagine the guy had to do some work to prep it for Amazon. I am not, however, surprised by this.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[ridgecritter]

Agree with your point. I've been spending more time at Ars lately, less here. Overall quality @ /. (stories and posts) is on a downtrend, IMHO.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[tsa]

I come to Ars more and more Because of the quality of the stories there. I think the Firehose on Slashdot was a bad idea. The editors should pick the stories, not the readers.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[McFadden]

Replying to revert moderation - accidentally slipped with the mouse and modded you flamebait.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Wovel]

Nailed it. It is ridiculous.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[dadioflex]

There was a big problem with scammers packaging wiki-ed information from community game sites to look like official game guides and selling it for stupid prices. I wondered why I hadn't seen any for a while. Personally I'm glad Amazon are actively blocking stuff like this because it was really poisoning their site.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Drathos]

The people running Slashdot are trolls, examples of the worst characteristics of journalism that we see many times elsewhere..

You seem to misunderstand Slashdot. There's no "journalism" here. Almost all of the content is user submitted, including most of the summaries. And with the "firehose," the "editors" take a step even further back in letting users select which submissions get posted.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[alanw]

There was a big problem with scammers packaging wiki-ed information from community game site

Worse than that, scammers were creating print-on-demand paperbacks of Wikipedia articles and selling them.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/03/2112203/print-on-demand-publisher-vdm-infects-amazon

I'm not sure how you easily stop that without hitting the people who genuinely own the copyright from distributing in a format other than a web page.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[humanrev]

You seem to misunderstand Slashdot. There's no "journalism" here. Almost all of the content is user submitted, including most of the summaries. And with the "firehose," the "editors" take a step even further back in letting users select which submissions get posted.

The users might be the ones selecting the submissions, but the editors have the final say as to what stories to run exactly how the summary should be worded. I've seen submissions turned completely on their head by the editors for shock/anger value, knowing that it'll bring in more clicks. The editors also are supposed to proof-read the summaries for errors, and if they don't then it's the editors who are blamed. Editing is a part of journalism, and so a tacky approach to editing is to me an example of shitty journalism.

If the editors didn't have this kind of input, well they wouldn't be editors would they? No-one would be running this place, and you'd have anarchy like it is on reddit.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Sir_Sri]

Unfortunately ars has a bit of a scattershot of quality. Article on network security? Awesome stuff they wrote themselves. Article on particle physics, no problem they have a PhD in nuclear physics for that. Article on chemistry... they've got nothin'.

It's like they have the right idea, but not enough money (or a poor HR department) and just can't find the right people to cover a diverse range of topics.

Despite the writing quality of the summary here, I actually think this article is sort of relevant. Amazon (rightly) doesn't want to let you sell books that you can get for free on the same device. That's a good thing overall, and reflects and underlying shift in how we think of books. The market for references, how to guides, etc. all have to change to keep up with the internet, there's isn't much place for trying to print and sell something you can find more effectively with google.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[hairyfeet]

Exactly, and as many nasty lawsuits as we have seen over copyrights I don't give a crap if the books was about Linux, Windows, or OSX the thing would be banned from the store and rightly so.

This "book" is no different than going to any "tips and tricks" site and simply bold faced copying the content and putting your name on it, and just because it has "Linux" in the article does NOT mean you are free to take someone else's writing and pass it off as your own or repackage it for profit.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Gordonjcp]

Why do you think those multiple "Linux desktop is dead" stories which were posted here in the last few weeks garnered so many comments?

Page views, and hence ad impressions.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[jones_supa]

You seem to misunderstand Slashdot. There's no "journalism" here. Almost all of the content is user submitted, including most of the summaries. And with the "firehose," the "editors" take a step even further back in letting users select which submissions get posted.

There is also something good in that kind of approach, in the sense of "the world needs curious amateurs too". Maybe that's part of the Slashdot's charm.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[FireFury03]

Worse than that, scammers were creating print-on-demand paperbacks of Wikipedia articles and selling them.

What's wrong with that? The CreativeCommons licence that Wikipedia uses allows exactly this, if people want a hard copy of some information instead of having to view it online then why shouldn't they be allowed to?

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[StripedCow]

The people running Slashdot are trolls

To be more specific, the people running Slashdot are patent and copyright trolls.
Their reasoning: as long as we're bitching about the system, nothing is going to change!

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[oji-sama]

What's wrong with that? The CreativeCommons licence that Wikipedia uses allows exactly this, if people want a hard copy of some information instead of having to view it online then why shouldn't they be allowed to?

Well, perhaps nothing as such. Then again, some of them were a bit obnoxious. I don't remember what exactly I was searching, perhaps a PS3 controller or something like that, but one of the best results (at that time) was one of these books. Only after reading it became clear that this thing that I believed to be a reasonably priced controller was actually not so reasonably priced book from Wikipedia

I should start selling photographs of items on Amazon, if people want an actual photograph of an item instead of having to take it themselves (or even worse, buy it), they should have this opportunity. To be fair, I should probably include "you are buying a photograph" in small print.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[dzfoo]

The Creative Commons license may allow exactly that, but the Creative Commons license does not govern Amazon.

Amazon, as a for-profit business, is entitled to sell whatever it wants. It seems they don't want their store stuffed with "me-too" copies of Wikipedia articles and online forum pages, and that's their prerogative.

Now, if you have your own store and printing press, go knock yourself out printing Wikipedia on demand and selling it; you are fully capable of doing so.

            -dZ.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statement about Ars Technica made me check them out. Featured story? How to host a minecraft server. I think I'll pass... (especially since hosting an MC server is very simple stuff)

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[FireFury03]

What's wrong with that? The CreativeCommons licence that Wikipedia uses allows exactly this, if people want a hard copy of some information instead of having to view it online then why shouldn't they be allowed to?

Well, perhaps nothing as such. Then again, some of them were a bit obnoxious. I don't remember what exactly I was searching, perhaps a PS3 controller or something like that, but one of the best results (at that time) was one of these books. Only after reading it became clear that this thing that I believed to be a reasonably priced controller was actually not so reasonably priced book from Wikipedia

I should start selling photographs of items on Amazon, if people want an actual photograph of an item instead of having to take it themselves (or even worse, buy it), they should have this opportunity. To be fair, I should probably include "you are buying a photograph" in small print.

So what you're saying is Amazon needs proper quality control to ensure the descriptions match what is actually being sold, rather than just banning whole classes of material.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[oji-sama]

Perhaps. Although I do wonder who wants to pay $15-50 for a few (outdated) pages of Wikipedia. I'm inclided to consider those 'books' to be spam.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[NormalVisual]

Amazon (rightly) doesn't want to let you sell books that you can get for free on the same device.

Yet they allow sales of works in the public domain such as Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, etc., which are freely available in electronic form on the Internet as well. Granted, those titles won't become dated like a technical reference would, but it's still a bit inconsistent on Amazon's part.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[CowTipperGore]

Yet they allow sales of works in the public domain such as Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, etc., which are freely available in electronic form on the Internet as well.

Yes, I've "bought" all of those books on Kindle. Of course, you failed to mention that they are available for $0.00. (Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland) To be fair, I would wager you can find non-free versions of these from others but Amazon must be exercising some control or there would thousands of versions of these public domain books in the store. The real issue is not the fact that it can be gotten for free elsewhere - the problem is that Dusty is not obviously the author or copyright owner of the material. Perhaps this case is perfectly innocent and there is no problem with him publishing the material under his name, but if Amazon cares about the quality of their marketplace, they ought to be careful about letting any random person scrape a community-created document from the internet and publish it as an ebook.

This thread actually brings up another point that I've wondered about recently. With the recent reports of ebook sells now outstripping printed books, I have to imagine that the huge number of free ebooks contribute significantly to these "sales" numbers. If I download a free book from Amazon, it is treated like a purchased item. Google does the same on their Play store. I've purchased about 40 Kindle books and spent less than $10.00 because most were free. I would love to see the ebook vs printed book numbers if you exclude all the free ebooks.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[NormalVisual]

Of course, you failed to mention that they are available for $0.00.

They're available for free, and they're also available as non-free ebooks on Amazon as well, from dozens of "authors". That's part of the problem - Amazon is enforcing a double standard, and says that they're attempting to "clean up" the marketplace as regards these kinds of tech ebooks, but they're apparently content to let the PD crowd run wild, and it's just as possible to pay money for a crappy version of a PD work as it is to pay money for a crappy collection of Wikipedia tech articles in their store.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[helix2301]

I agree slashdots fact checking and stories have gotten a bit mediocre.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[History's Coming To]

This happens all the time, you can quite legitimately create a book purely based on Wikipedia articles and sell it. Sometimes you get a great product where the author has pulled together high quality articles and sub-edited them, added diagrams and examples, test questions etc and produced a genuinely useful book that's worth paying for. Most of the time, however, it's simply a printout of Wikipedia articles and is a complete waste of time and money. It also happens in the print trade, there's a few company selling wikipedia books for £30 a pop to buyers who haven't checked the contents.

The other big issue here is the fact that people are obsessed with getting their content into the walled gardens of Amazon and iTunes, as if there was no other way to distribute a common eBook format or mp3, and then go screaming censorship. It's their playground, if you don't like their decisions then you are free to "workaround" by simply distributing directly. Everyone though Amazon was great because they were cheap and "cut out the middle man". Now they are the middle man, and you can still cut them out. They won't distribute your book? No big worry, if it's any good it'll sell whether or not it's on Amazon.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[MikeBabcock]

I'm on Amazon's side on this one -- a GFDL book should either be free on Kindle or distributed another way -- selling it for any value would create confusion as you cannot claim full Copyright ownership of the book.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[CowTipperGore]

They're available for free, and they're also available as non-free ebooks on Amazon as well, from dozens of "authors". That's part of the problem - Amazon is enforcing a double standard, and says that they're attempting to "clean up" the marketplace as regards these kinds of tech ebooks, but they're apparently content to let the PD crowd run wild, and it's just as possible to pay money for a crappy version of a PD work as it is to pay money for a crappy collection of Wikipedia tech articles in their store.

While I'm sure there are exceptions, many of the various editions are something other than a simple reprinting of the public domain materials. Just looking at Frankenstein, you see editions tailored for all sorts of uses. There are study editions that include definitions of words and other commentary. There are simplified versions for younger readers. There are illustrated ones and another that went to Shelley's notes and manuscripts to retell the story as they believe she originally intended. Regardless, I'm sure you're correct (and I said as much in my initial response) that there probably are unnecessary junk versions of the public domain stuff. If Amazon cares about their ecosystem, as they should, this crap should get trimmed away from the active store eventually. That some junk got in before doesn't make it wrong to clamp down on new junk.

That said, the Amazon response is a bit curious given that the free public domain books include this disclaimer right on the Amazon page: "This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web."

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point.

A couple years back, after they first implemented print-on-demand books and kindle e-books, amazon got a flood of "authors" who would grab N pages from wikipedia that were loosely related, glue them together, and call them a "book", and sell them for cheap. People who bought this trash would complain, because you bought something thinking it was a book on topic X and instead got a bunch of wikipedia pages on X. There was no audience of people clamoring for parts of wikipedia to be in book form, there were just scammers trying to use it to trick you into buying something, while being able to claim "it's a book, it contains information on the topic the title said it was about, so you can't demand a refund from me!".

Amazon cracked down on this, and the policy is "quit being a wanker and claiming that a bunch of wiki pages is a book".

If you want to write a serious book with actual value-added content, amazon will publish it. If you want to take an actual book that is public-domain and sell it on the kindle, you can do that (though they're likely to say "no" if they already have people selling something identical, so you might want to do the value-add of at least writing an introduction or footnotes or something so you can meaningfully call it different). But if you want to write a wiki page, stick it on a wiki and give people a web link. If you want to scrape someone's wiki for content and call it a book, amazon is generally acting in the best interests of their customers when they say "whatever, we aren't going to sell that".

Amazon's business model is selling books to customers, and they have every right to say "if this category of book is going to piss off customers, we aren't going to sell it".

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[CowTipperGore]

Replying to myself to clarify something I just confirmed. Amazon's policies are very clear on this and they do make exceptions for public domain works that bring some additional value:

Public Domain and Other Non-Exclusive Content

Some types of content, such as public domain content, may be free to use by anyone, or may be licensed for use by more than one party. We will not accept content that is freely available on the web unless you are the copyright owner of that content. For example, if you received your book content from a source that allows you and others to re-distribute it, and the content is freely available on the web, we will not accept it for sale on the Kindle store. We do accept public domain content, however we may choose to not sell a public domain book if its content is undifferentiated or barely differentiated from one or more other books.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[red crab]

but if Amazon cares about the quality of their marketplace, they ought to be careful about letting any random person scrape a community-created document from the internet and publish it as an ebook.

By that definition, every tech book should be treated as non-original work since the information it conveys to the reader is already available freely on the web, though not consolidated as in a book. I think they (Amazon) need to understand that they are just sellers, not publishers and they need to be least concerned about what experience a user might derive after reading a book purchased by them.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[Blue Stone]

>The people running Slashdot are trolls, examples of the worst characteristics of journalism that we see many times elsewhere but can't understand why such behavior exists on a site supposedly for geeks

It's click-bait. Clicks from curious or (potentially) outraged readers = money from page views via either direct advert views or data which they can sell to advertisers to encourage adverts being placed ... = money, money, money.

It's like those Apple stories that every other site publishes - the apple fans read 'em out of fandom and the iHaters click through to find fault and take issue. The website wins whatever happens. Because clicks mean prizes.

WHAT DO CLICKS MEAN ...?

(everybody) PRAHZEZ!

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[truedfx]

"We will not accept content that is freely available on the web unless you are the copyright owner of that content." and "We do accept public domain content" are contradictory unless the latter is intended as an exception to the former (which is not what the text you quoted actually says), or only public domain content that isn't freely available on the web is accepted (which is clearly not how Amazon themselves interpret it). So the policies aren't as clear for the general case as you say they are; there are some real books where reasonable people will come to different conclusions about what the policy actually says. Linked, by the way. But they are indeed very clear for the specific book that this story is concerned with.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[cheesybagel]

Yes please go read important non news about Apple's toilets in CNET. Arstechnica is usually a pretty reasonably site to read but they still suffer from the Apple disease where even the slightest boring rumor gets reported.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[SomePoorSchmuck]

I come to Ars more and more Because of the quality of the stories there. I think the Firehose on Slashdot was a bad idea. The editors should pick the stories, not the readers.

Letting the inmates run more and more of the asylum is what killed Kuro5hin too.

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[doctorfaustus]

>>>>And I've been visiting Slashdot for a long-long-time !

Actually, I think you must be new around here....

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[chrismcb]

Yet they allow sales of works in the public domain such as Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, etc.,

Of course, because the works are in public domain. You can sale them.
Amazon is questioning the content of the book, and claiming the author doesn't have the proper documentation to prove he has a right to republish the content, or that the content is in public domain.
How hard is that to understand?

Re:I do not know why this appear on Slashdot !!

[NormalVisual]

How hard is that to understand?

Hard enough such that you misunderstood Amazon's position. They're not saying he doesn't have the right to republish the content, but rather that he doesn't have an *exclusive* right. They're not wanting dozens of copies of the same content, i.e., the same Wikipedia article in ebook form, even though it's perfectly legal for someone to do that and Amazon knows it. They're also not wanting stale, out of date content in regards to technical/reference works. The general objective is to reduce customer complaints and improve the overall experience of their store, and my point was that they have no problem with offering dozens of copies of identical PD content, so they're still going to run into the same issues.

Rapidly Diminishing Returns

[ZombieBraintrust]

Not much value when there are hundreds of people creating compilations of public-domain works because they purchased a $.99 book titled "How to make a fortune selling books on Amazon! $$$". These bookstores just need to sign a deal with Project Guutenberg and integrate the free stuff into a free section of the store.

Re:RATS in your hands and pockets!

[Artifakt]

I never met a device with batteries I couldn't remove. Just ignore the warning it contains no user serviceable parts. On the other hand, if it bricks when you give it that treatment, don't buy it.

Where to get .mobi or .epub computer books?

[tadas]

Most free programming/systems administrator/etc. free books seem to be available only as PDF, which is pretty much unusable on a Kindle.

Does the Slashdot hive mind know of any sources for free computer books suitable for a Kindle or Nook (Calibre solves the epub to mobi problem)?

Re:Where to get .mobi or .epub computer books?

[tsa]

Calibre can also turn PDF into something else. It works well with texts but I don't know what it does with pictures.

Re:Who cares? Kindle Blows! IPHONE 5 HAS QUAD CORE

[R3d M3rcury]

I use my iPhone outside all the time--I have it mounted to my bike as a bike-computer. If I ride at the wrong time--say, 1 o'clock or so--the sun makes it unreadable unless I futz with the angle.

But it's a worthwhile point--much like cameras, the best e-reader is the one that you have with you.

Re:Who cares? Kindle Blows! IPHONE 5 HAS QUAD CORE

[Osgeld]

guess I am too old (at age 33) to read something substantial on a tiny screen

back when the PDA rage was going on, yea no problem, I could sit there and stare at it all day, not anymore, me need large screen!

Re:Was he trying to sell the Kindle version?

[Osgeld]

aye, bandwidth and space are stupid dirt cheap, but that isn't free

IF they did, there would be an onslaught of free books from everyone who wanted to write that great novel, and the host is stuck with the bill

Kindle "Publishing" already has a lot of 'free'

[dtjohnson]

Amazon theoretically pays royalties of 35 to 70 percent of the retail price of their Kindle e-books to the copyright holder. However, what is not perhaps so widely known is the 'Amazon Gotcha' which is: "As the publisher, you (the author) set the "list price" for your content. Amazon.com reserves the right to set the retail price at our sole discretion. See the Pricing Page and Terms and Conditions for information on how royalties are calculated. Please note, We reserve the right to set the retail price we charge for the books you provide to us. We may offer your book at a price below your list price if, for example, the price at which a competitor sells your book, or the price at which we sell a physical edition of your book is lower than your list price. In that case, if you chose the 70% royalty option, your royalties will be calculated off of this offer price for sales that qualify for the 70% royalty option. If you chose the 35% royalty option, you will be paid off of the original list price you chose.

What does this mean? Amazon can set the price at anything they want to, including "zero." Guess what 70 percent of zero is? So...when Amazon is restricting content as TFA refers to, by claiming that the content is already 'freely available on the web' they are dissembling since a goodly portion of their kindle store is already 'free.' The main reason for Amazon's action is more likely embodied in the Amazon statement "we are not confident that you hold exclusive publishing rights." Amazon is happy to sell content for free because it builds their Kindle brand but they don't want there to be any chance of a copyright violation coming back to them as a costly claim.

writing is actually fucking hard

[decora]

all through college you listen to the 'engineer' and 'computer' kids and professors shit all over the 'liberal arts morons' and 'worthless degrees like english'.

then you get in the real world and try to, you know, fucking write something. turns out those 'morons' in 'liberal arts' were actually doing something that is every bit as difficult as creating an OS kernel or a graph algorithm.

things like 'fact checking' and 'editing' evolved over centuries, centuries of the craft, yes, the fucking craft of this thing called 'writing', which is as technical and difficult as any other field of human endeavor, from metallurgy to blacksmithing to CPU architecture.

the difference nowdays is that writing is fucking debased and devalued by society due to various factors that have barely, if ever, been studied. then we wake up one day and wonder why the fuck we are so ignorant. because we threw the writers and editors in the garbage can, because, after all, the work they did was 'worthless'.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[AxeTheMax]

And obviously you did not get any of this 'liberal arts' education, since you could not be bothered to start sentences with capital letters, and use obscenities liberally and unnecessarily in your writing,

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[CountBrass]

But at least he didn't start any of his sentences with a conjunction. :)

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[serviscope_minor]

professors shit all over the 'liberal arts morons' and 'worthless degrees like english'.

There has been a strong anti university undercurrent on /. recently by people who haven't got the first clue about universities.

At my undergrad university, the engineering professors would frequently lament the poor standard of student writing in the examiners report. But they knew that the had too little time to teach it properly.

Any research professor knows that students almost universally suck at writing papers, and it's the job of the professor teach students how to write. The first few times this is usually very painful because you have to plough through a terribly written research paper multiple times and really give constructive criticism. otherwise the paper won't get published.

I have never, ever, met of professor in any discpline who considers things like good writing or English degrees worthless.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[realityimpaired]

There are actually some forms of casual writing which are accepted academically, and which do not make use of what we would call proper capitalization. Similarly, curse words can be used effectively for emphasis and, at the University level, will not usually get you in trouble. :)

What amuses me most is the derision for degrees like Philosophy... here we have a degree where the focus is on logic and critical thinking, and where the ability to write effectively is not optional, and better still, a degree without any bad habits that will need to be unlearned in your first few years in the field, yet a very large number of people choose to mock it as essentially useless. I'm not saying that a Philosophy degree will set you up to practice medicine, but a good programmer doesn't necessarily have a degree in their language of choice: a good programmer is somebody who can think logically, adapt easily to change, and communicate clearly. The same applies for just about any field outside of medicine, law, hard science, and engineering (and a degree in Philosophy actually applies *very* well to Law). The irony of it all? Even though I'm using a *lot* more from the Philosophy component of my degree than anything else in my background, what actually got my foot in the door was the military experience, because they were the only ones who didn't balk at the idea of somebody with a degree in Philosophy/Linguistics with multiple secondary languages.

...Though I do get some amusement from the knowledge that the people who made fun of me for having a useless degree are now answering to me... :)

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Or an upper case letter.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[guyniraxn]

While I agree strongly with your last point, I disagree just as strongly with the assertion that writing is just as difficult as "creating an OS kernel or a graph alogorithm."

I know it's anecdotal but I breezed through liberal arts electives while majoring in EE by writing papers either the night before or the morning of the due date. At the same time, people majoring in those classes I was electing were pulling their hair out to get the same grades as I. No, our professors did not grade us differently based on major, they had little knowledge or concern for that. I also had a friend who liked to poke fun at other non-science/engineering friends. He even wrote some of their papers for them, having never taken those classes, and got them As. Everyone in science and engineering shares these same anecdotes.

I was lucky enough that my university took technical writing seriously so that every year we had to pass/fail a required course on technical writing. The guy who taught that really wasn't an engineer and only cared about proper writing and communication. The dept would bring in professional writers to grade our work and have a sit down review with us individually to point out any tiny flaw and make sure we understood where we went wrong and how to fix it. It's true that most of the other students though it was BS and that they shouldn't be bothered but it was pretty easy nonetheless.

It's true that society has devalued writing to the point where adults primarily read teen and young adult garbage, even to the point where they hold up Harry Potter as an example of "good" writing. Still, science and engineering are far more abstract and difficult than proper writing. The submitters and editors post shit summaries not because it's hard but because they just don't think it's important enough to exert any effort. That would take time away from reading 50 Shades of Grey.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[tbid18]

Sounds like you have a bone to pick. I haven't heard anyone talk about how writing is worthless, certainly not professors. Writing is clearly an incredibly valuable skill; however, I wouldn't say it is as difficult as writing an OS (as far as basic competency is concerned, anyway). They are wildly different skills, though, so it's subjective. Your accusation may be accurate in regards to certain internet cultures (though you should account for humor), but indicting universities at a general level? No way. Your experiences are vastly different from mine, at least.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[crazyjj]

And obviously you did not get any of this 'liberal arts' education, since you could not be bothered to start sentences with capital letters

And obviously you've never heard of ee cummings.

and use obscenities liberally and unnecessarily in your writing,

...or pretty much any other modern writer.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[Quirkz]

I think there's a couple of things.

1. When the average person imagines a philosopher doing their work, they're mostly imagining someone sitting there, not (visibly) doing anything. It's hard to generate a lot of respect for what doesn't look like anything.

2. The output of philosophy is words, often phrased as suggestions, imperatives, or instructions - perceived by people as being told what to do. Nobody likes being told what to do, especially by someone who (per #1 above) just sits around all day not doing anything but telling other people what to do. Even worse, everyone and their mother runs around telling everyone else what to do all the time, despite nobody else appreciating the advice, and most of that advice is minimally thought-out junk. There's little to no appreciation that someone trained in logic and analysis might have slightly more valuable advice than average.

3. A shallow introduction to logic reveals a lot of old philosophy is dense, convoluted, generally discredited, and/or far removed from the concerns of daily life. (I haven't read enough modern philosophy to know that's still the case, but I know for certain a lot of old physics texts struck me as pretty indecipherable compared to modern ones - whereas physics can get by with new texts and classic equations, the study of philosophy necessarily keeps returning to the older materials.)

So that's what I think is a typical impression of philosophy. From experience, I know that after my physics and math classes, the philosophy classes I took were among the most difficult. I also know as a programmer I gained at least as much from my symbolic logic philosophy class as I did from my intro C++ programming class.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[mcgrew]

And obviously you did not get any of this 'liberal arts' education, since you could not be bothered to start sentences with capital letters, and use obscenities liberally and unnecessarily in your writing,

Flamebait, my ass. Obviously the aliterate* youngsters who refuse to use proper capitalization and punctuation and other writing conventions have mod points. Me? When I see "the cat's are fighting again. there mice are gone!" I conclude that the writer is an uneducated bore not worth reading. I don't read comments like that.

Someone please mod the mismodded parent back up. And slashdot, please stop giving mod points to aliterates! Maybe a literacy test before mod points are handed out?

* If you think "aliterate" is a misspelling, you probably are one. Look it up in a dictionary.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[jedidiah]

> turns out those 'morons' in 'liberal arts' were actually doing something that is every bit as difficult as creating an OS kernel or a graph algorithm.

Don't kid yourself.

Liberal Arts classes are what engineers take to inflate their lagging GPAs when they are trying to get into grad school.

The state of "real journalism" is why news publishers are being killed off by the web.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[mcgrew]

There has been a strong anti university undercurrent on /. recently by people who haven't got the first clue about universities.

Back in the old days, most folks at slashdot were educated. Sadly, we nerds have become popular (I never though I'd ever see THAT!), so now apparently high school dropouts and folks with two digit IQs come here spouting nonsense.

Any research professor knows that students almost universally suck at writing papers

To be fair, a lot of researchers suck at it, too. One report I read at work used the word "enumerate" seven times in a single paragraph without once using the word "count". It seems their mantra is "never utilize a single syllable word when a multisyllable word will suffice."

I have never, ever, met of professor in any discpline who considers things like good writing or English degrees worthless.

Neither have I. Probably neither has anyone who ever finished high school. However, most of them can't help being uneducated.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[mcgrew]

It's true that society has devalued writing to the point where adults primarily read teen and young adult garbage, even to the point where they hold up Harry Potter as an example of "good" writing.

Actually, I've read that the best writing is done at a 9th grade reading level. Isaac Asimov wrote his books at an 8th grade level, and his nonfiction was especially good -- clear, concise, easy to read. If you have to slog through it, it's not good writing. If you don't even see the words but instead see what the words convey, that's good writing. If you don't want to put the book down, that's great writing.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[mcgrew]

What amuses me most is the derision for degrees like Philosophy... here we have a degree where the focus is on logic and critical thinking

Logic and critical thinking? I worked with a fellow who was majoring in philosophy. He postulated that anything he couldn't see didn't exist. Logic? Critical thinking? He turned his back and said "now you don't exist." I proved him wrong by hitting him on the head with a box of popcorn.

That's what's wrong with philosophy; it's adherents are almost as crazy as economists. Logic? Critical thinking? LOL!

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[mcgrew]

And obviously you've never heard of ee cummings.

He was a poet, not a writer. Poetry is no more communication than an abstract painting is. A book written without capitals would take twice as long to read, with half the comprehension. Get rid of punctuation as well and you have a REAL unreadable mess.

Writing is all about communication. Anything that detracts from readability is a detriment to communication. The conventions are there for a purpose -- to make the prose readable.

If you can't take the effort to at least try to follow conventions, I can't take the effort to decipher your aliterate ramblings; not all of us move our lips when we read!

In short, if you don't use caps, what you tell me is that you're a young, ignorant hipster who cares more about being cool than being clear and you have no interest in communication.

I have to agree about the obscenities, as long as they are there for a good purpose and not just to be cool.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[mcgrew]

PS: This is what Cummings' prose looked like:

A locomotive cut the car in half, killing my father instantly. When two brakemen jumped from the halted train, they saw a woman standing â" dazed but erect â" beside a mangled machine; with blood spouting (as the older said to me) out of her head. One of her hands (the younger added) kept feeling her dress, as if trying to discover why it was wet. These men took my sixty-six year old mother by the arms and tried to lead her toward a nearby farmhouse; but she threw them off, strode straight to my father's body, and directed a group of scared spectators to cover him. When this had been done (and only then) she let them lead her away.

Re:writing is actually fucking hard

[realityimpaired]

Thank you for proving my point.

Either you, or your friend, has completely misunderstood the point of radical empiricism, which is very definitely not an idea that your friend originated. Quite likely, at the time this was being put forward by your friend, either he had not completed his studies, or he was using it to emphasize a point in a larger discussion and you missed the implication.

Either that, or you're deliberately being a jackass. I'm not ruling that possibility out, either.

Re:hi

[jones_supa]

Excel.

Made up 'fact'.

[CountBrass]

Care to provide evidence for your claim? I've bought many books from Amazon, not one of them contains an advert.

Re:As another poster says: the license allows this

[Daemonik]

That's a nice sentiment, how about Amazon redirects all the calls from upset customers who thought they were buying 2 different books only to discover they were the same rewrapped wiki articles from differen't "authors".

That is why Amazon is taking this stance, they don't want 30 different people trying to lay claim to the same public material, claim authorship because they did a few edits and then have to deal with the legal & customer fallout.

Re:As another poster says: the license allows this

[hairyfeet]

Because he is NOT SELLING LINUX he is just copypasta a bunch of wiki articles and SELLING THAT which again it does NOT matter WHAT the article is about, unless the article is released under PD you can't just snatch other people's writing because they use the word Linux, okay?

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, if someone honestly thinks typing the word "Linux" onto a page automatically makes it GPL no damned wonder corps look at GPL as a damned infection!

Re:hi

[BronsCon]

Power-point

Preemptive swindling

[chrismcb]

How does one preemptively swindle something?
Amazon doesn't have to sell every book that is tossed its way. And yet people can still release their books, and others can still read them on the kindle.
Who is being swindled here?

No need to do that

[yangli520]

No need to do that