Slashdot Mirror
Free Books Online
Matt Braithwaite writes "Answering RMS's call for free documentation, Karl Fogel has written a
book on CVS that is free (GPLed) and available online. (The
paper version
has additional non-free material.) " Also, edinator wrote to say that ORA has put the Using Samba text online. Some old news there, but, hey, some light figure for after eating turkey.
For anyone who's not already aware of it...
InformIT has quite a selection of books in their Free Library. It has a number of books from Que, SAMS, and New Riders, among others. They're all available for online reading.
PigPog.
Boy, I like this community.
GNU guru and mainframe hacker
I know that this is most likely way out of left-field, but isn't it interesting that the GPL is so versatile? I havn't read through it completely, and by all means, I AM NOT A LAWYER. But I truly respect how dynamic it is.
Software can be released under it.. for free. Books, hardware specs, art, music (please don't argue that it *is* art, I may vomit), and countless other things that would benefit the community.
The GPL has truly turned into what the 'Patent' may have originally meant to be. A great idea that gives undeniable credit to the original author, while enriching the community by giving the new idea free reign.
I am waiting for the day when I can log on and download almost any book imaginable. A day where we don't pay for someones intellectual property, but rather we pay for the materials that we use to view that property (CDs, pulp, disposable LCDs, you name it).
WARNING: I may be a purest.. sue me.
rJames.org - illustration
The entire text of the Oreilly Docbook is downloadable www.docbook.org (bit above my head though) BruceEckels Thinking in Java is downloadable in many formats. www.bruceeckel.com In the past some people have assumed that nobody would buy a book if the text was online. Bruce Eckel comments that it will cost you almost as much in toner cartridge to print out the book as it would to buy (I know this doesn't hold true for all of the world, and certainly not here in the UK). The analogy I like to draw is that of newspapers in public libraries. Sure you can get to read them for free, but if the price is reasonable it is much more convenient to buy your very own copy to take away and read on the bus. Last but not least another fine example of online technical text is ....ahem , my very own Java Cert tutorial (100's of pages) online. http://www.software.u-net.com Marcus Green
Maybe I'm wrong, but wasn't Stallman's original point that when people don't get paid for their software, they would get paid for support? ;-), but where is it leading to?
I consider documentation as part of that support, so what's next? A call for free support centers?
I think this is cool (I like free documentation!
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
I really like this approach because
a) there are people who could really use the
information in the books, but can't afford them.
(poor students?) These people would have to make
do with other possibly worse docs. The publishers
win because these people will gain respect
for the publisher if the book is any good.
b) people with cash to spend can make better
choices. For instance if I came across an online
book which I thought was relevant and good, I
would be more inclined to buy it. Even if it
had nothing new to me, I still may buy it for
my co-workers.
There really is nothing like a bound book.
Computer professionals desks are swamped in
reams of a4 printouts. Does anybody actually
print the things out instead of reading online?
STeve.
I work for a technical bookstore and being able to download a book for a customer can sure cure a lot of headaches. Especially since downloading from a person to another person is not taxable. Personally I can not read more than 2 help pages in a row on the computer. A book you can eat and read, sit anywhere, and take it with you to the bathroom. Very good for ignoring the mate.
I have a big bag full of two cents and I'm coming your way.
There's also www.itknowledge.com, which has a free archive, with all the books from InformIt and more. They also have lots of on-line books for only $150/year. There's also books24x7.com, w/o free section and $200/year, but they're worth it. There's also www.ibooks.com, which will come online soon, they say. Go check all these out.
In a world without walls, who needs Windows? In a world without fences, who needs Gates?
The GPL is not really appropriate for documents (see below). View the OpenContent licence for a more appropriate document.
The OpenContent Content Database (I love that name!) lists the few documents that are known to have been released under the licence.
From the OpenContent FAQ:
Hi!
When I first saw the "black book of perl" I was sorta worried about this company... I didn't actually read it but the title seemed to indicate another Sams Teach Complete Idiots Nothing For Dummies type book. OI then picked it up and realized this was not the case. Another company, New Riders, is from the same publisher that controls Sams. I have the book by Havoc Pennington, GTK+ / Gnome Application Development. This book was releasd under the OPL (Open Publication License) so that may be online soon, as well. I am very happy that book makers are getting in to this as I am strapped for money about all twhe time and will most likely have to get a job at Barnes and Noble just for the discount. This definitly bodes well. But, as you may have realized, if publishers put their books online and then sales drop noticably they will NOT continue to do this. So we must still buy books. If we don't, this privilage won't last long.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am
Does anyone know if (where?) the O'Reilly Samba book is available in a printer-friendly version (in one piece), be it txt, pdf, html, ps or whatever? I want to read it whitout hurting my eyes too much on my crappy 70Hz display...
The samba.org guys are supposed to reformat it this way, but I haven't seen anything on their site yet.
--
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
at: http://www.dreamscape.com/frankvad/free.books.html http://www.icemall.com/free/free_books.html have a nice read ...
So I assume he also feel the GPL is inadequate for books. Also, note that the books published by the FSF aren't under the GPL either, but under ad-hoc licenses.
The documentation is part of the software and is forked with it; precisely the same freedoms should accompany it. I don't see any problem with the docs for GPL software being under the GPL.
I'd also be happier if the OPL were certified Open Source.
--
Xenu loves you!
I've been doing a lot of emailing with RMS of late, and something that I think must annoy him is silly twats like me failing to go to the ever-useful philosophy section of his website.
Just a few notes about Free Books. Richard has - I may be hearing FUD here - previously called O'Reilly the "parasite of Free Software". O'Reilly was and is the de facto "Publisher to Hackerdom", and their license terms used to inspire RMS to say:
Of course, things have changed now. O'Reilly has begun to talk about their Open Publishing License (or whatever it is), and have begun to put certain books online. I would be interested in seeing if Richard considers these to be "Free Documentation" or not.
BTW, I'll agree that the GPL does not really address documentation very well. The OpenContent License is aimed at this sort of stuff.
As someone else pointed out: Richard's constant mantra is "Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price".
Books still have their advantages over online docs, mind you. For example, a book has a near-zero boot time, has effectively infinite uptime, has extremely high definition displays, allows you to add your own notes directly to the 'file' (requires a Pen (tm) or Pencil (tm)), it is highly portable, it is compatible with most People, it can be found in alternate formats for non-compatible people (ie Braille), it can be given as a gift, it can be thrown at a faulty TV screen, it can be used to attract attention from others (thy fellow geek) or to drive it away (thy fellow 'blond').
Online documentation is searchable, so that you can curse and swear when you don't have the precise phrase you need. It's quick, and cross-linked and whatnot, and utterly inscrutable. Oh, and you can print it out yourself ...
Be well;
JC.
-- The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the fictional entity who may or may not have expressed them
but where is it leading to?
Isn't this leading to Star Trek? Didn't they pretty much "do away" with money?
The Second edition of the Gimp User's Manual is also reslesed under a free license (OPL).
The biggest difference is that you can get it in both pdf and html format and all chapters are avalible. I consider that publishing it in a html only is not so free. Only publish a subset is also to be considered not so free.
Why? Well as a reader you want to be able to print the whole book and and have it next to you when you deal with your projet. Maybe you also want to bring it with you and read it in your bed etc.
Still it a good thing that people and publishers let readers/users read the book for free. Me my self buy my books since paper format is always nicer. I also think you should buy your books (if you can afford it) since otherwise no one will write books.
The biggest thing is however to be able to choose, buy or download
monkeyjump.com/anti-linx has a ton of anti-linux postcards! (and a few others too;-)
O'Reilly's "Palm Programming: The Developer's Guide" can be read at: http://www.palm.com/devzone/docs/pptdg/TableOfCont ents.htm
I'm _very_ tempted to download the samba book to our corporate internal webserver. I probably will do this come monday.
I'm less than tickled, however, about the effect this will have on O'Reilly's sales. Do you think our employees will read through it and decide to buy a copy? Or do you think they'll decide not to buy a copy because they don't have to?
I think it _could_ help sales when the book is of sufficiently high quality and density that it is useful after reading it, useful on site, useful when troubleshooting. If it's so much fluff like some companies put out, though, then I can't imagine it would flourish in such an environment.
-josh
Congrats Karl on an excellent book.
-Fitz
We've always made freely-available all our OpenMail manuals and the majority of our 200- and 300-level course notes.
richi.
--
Richi Jennings
W/w OpenMail Marcom, PR/ICR Manager - http://www.hp.com/go/openmail
Hewlett-Packard Company
"Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty"
I really like that word for 'Paper-version'. Is it already in the Jargon file?
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Brad Kuhn is writing a free book on Perl here: http://www.ebb.org/PickingUpPerl/
How many times have you been holding a paper book in your hand, trying to find some particular passage and wished that you had a grep facility handy to make that search more efficient? It happens to me all the time.
I hate reading things off the screen, especially for long periods. I cannot concentrate like I can with a book. Yet the searchablity of online docs is amazingly useful.
I wish someone would port grep to the human brain(tm)
As far as I know, it is the definitive free book page.
Enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving (for the Americans).
When can we expect a CVS repository for the Linux kernel code? CVSup is much better than downloading the patches, imho.
...with some justification, IMHO, Linus
decided that CVS could not handle the
Linux kernel (it's just too many files).
And it is true that on a large
project with lots of history, certain
CVS operations can become
might slow. I'd love to see it in CVS too,
but I can't deny that Linus' complaints
are valid.
If I remember correctly,
the Linux kernel is (or soon will be) in
BitKeeper,
which was specifically designed with
the Linux kernel in mind, although it
is supposed to be of general utility too.
Unfortunately, BitKeeper's license is not
completely free, which I think prevents its
wider adoption. I have no idea of its
technical merits, never having used it myself,
but from what I've read at their web site
they appear to be thinking carefully
about how to do revision control.
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel
lots of e-books & tutorials @ http://smog.cjb.net
lots of e-books & tutorials @ Smog Alert
Here's what I've found.
;-)
Any reference material (most perl docs, man pages in general), I read online. Like you said, the searchability is infinitely useful. Anything where I have to jump to a certain section, get what I need, then quit, is preferably online.
However, 'handholding' tutorials (ORA's _Learning_Perl_ springs to mind) are better perused in dead-tree form.
Another factor is how hard it is to switch between docs and code (assuming programming docs) or between docs and the command prompt (OS or app related docs). If I need short bits of information (code snippets), man pages/info/etc work well. If I'm following a long list of instructions, I prefer to have a paper version too keep me from switching between X desktops too often.
Overall, both options have their pros and cons. Just keep your laser printer and super-duper-infinitesimal-resolution scanner available, just in case one doesn't work and you need to try the other....
Sorry for any brain farts, it's late here... even by my standards...
o/~ All God's children shall be free in Pirates of the Caribbean, when we reach that Magic Kingdom in the sky... o/~