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.

Comments

InformIT

[pigpogm]

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.

Free Docs? Free Support? Free Everything?

[ghoti]

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?
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! ;-), but where is it leading to?

Re:Free Docs? Free Support? Free Everything?

[cybaea]

Again, for the nth time and quoting from the article mentioned in the original post:

Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price

RMS further elaborates that the reason why you need free (in the sense of available as source and available for modification) documentation for free (in the same sense) software, is such that you can update the documentation when you modify the software! This seems to be an important point.

So, if I make a better perl (and the world beats a path to my door...) it is kind of unfortunate that I cannot update the most popular O'Reilly books whith my enhancements. (Perl might be a bad example as the available documentation is quite good, but replace it with something else you know where the developer's docs are not sufficient. (sendmail?))

Seriously: read the whole article. RMS is making some good points in there (and I'm not normally a fan).

good news and good moves

[steve9000]

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.

Not appropriate licence

[cybaea]

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:

Why do we need the OPL?

Computer software can already be made free for public consumption and improvement by distribution under one of several Free Software licenses as mentioned above. If you're developing executable code with instructional potential, please consider licensing it as "Free Software" so that it can both be a part of the Bazaar development cycle and freely accessible to everyone.

Other Content (Learning Objects) such as graphics, images, sound bytes, video clips, models, lecture notes, tutorials, HOW-TO's and anything else that can be "referenced during technology supported learning" can not be released under these licenses because they are written specifically for computer software. The OpenContent License has been created to provide instructional designers and content specialists the same benefits, protections and assurances programmers gain from Free Software licenses. The OPL (pronounced "opal") is always open for comment. This version draws inspiration (and some verbiage) from the GPL and Debian's Social Contract.

Re:The Oreilly DocBook book is online

[cybaea]

Thanks for that info, that's very useful.

Will somebody please moderate this post up?

Here are the hyperlinks:

• http://www.docbook.org
• http://www.bruceeckel.com
• http://www.software.u-net.com (the tutorial is here)

more free books

[king's jester]

at: http://www.dreamscape.com/frankvad/free.books.html http://www.icemall.com/free/free_books.html have a nice read ...