Thank you for the offers but please send them to me at raphael@ouaza.com... I need at least an email and a name to get back to you in case we're looking for help (either for translation or for review).
...and this is an original book in French. It's not a translation of a German book. I don't know where you found this misinformation.
I read it in one of one the comments here. Is that not the same book? Aren't you Raphaël Hertzog?
No, it's not the same book. The one that will be translated is here (former edition here). Or you might want the official web page I maintain for the French version.
Concerning the book you linked to, yes I am the Raphael Hertzog who contributed to the translation, but the original book was not in German but in English (even though the author—Martin Krafft—speaks German as his mother tongue).
I think repeatedly calling your book a "bestseller" because it happened to be a "bestseller" on amazon.fr for a single morning (or perhaps even less time than that) is misleading.
Thanks for the clarification, I had not understood your point. I call it a bestseller because it is a bestseller for my editor, we sold over 16000 copies of this book and for a technical book on the French market, this is really good. Most technical books barely achieve 1000-1500 copies (the point where the editor usually starts making some money). The fact that we were on Amazon's listing is just a little anecdote to introduce the story...
Re-translating it to French would not be a copyright violation, no. It's a new work. But my hope is that the free English version will have success so that I can convince my editor to release the original French version under a free license.
Did you miss the part of the plan where we want to publish it under a free license? That said you're right. I truly hope the sales of paper copies will support my Debian work (dpkg maintenance among other things) once the book is available world-wide.
It's not like I have not been trying to get support as dpkg maintainer (head over to raphaelhertzog.com)... but the truth is that donations are not allowing me to work on dpkg, but the royalties of the French book did!
BTW the book has been updated and extended for each Debian release since 2004, so it's still very relevant.
Unfortunately we don't own the rights on the French version, so we can't liberate it and then do the translation. But we do have all the rights on the translated version though. So we're going to liberate that one if we meet our fundraising goals.
And it's exactly this. Ulule.com is a kickstarter like service. Instead of using Amazon Payments they use Paypal but the base concept is really the same.
2-hour lunch breaks, 15 min smoke breaks, 5 week vacations, and 35 hours work week. It all adds up.
Plus the original work was in German. I don't understand why they would first translate it in French, and then translate the French version into English. That part makes no sense to me.
I do not smoke and this is an original book in French. It's not a translation of a German book. I don't know where you found this misinformation.
Plus it sounds like they hired a sleazy American marketing expert. Those guys are not cheap. That's probably already 10,000 euros down the drain from the get go on the Marketing guy alone.
Concerning the amount, you need to be aware that the rewards have a price and the net value that will be left for us is much lower. Cf the FAQ: http://debian-handbook.info/faq/#q2.2
And about letting the community do the translation, it's something of a last resort because you really need a small set of translators to have a quality result (i.e. consistent). It's also covered here: http://debian-handbook.info/faq/#q3.1
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Thank you for the offers but please send them to me at raphael@ouaza.com... I need at least an email and a name to get back to you in case we're looking for help (either for translation or for review).
...and this is an original book in French. It's not a translation of a German book. I don't know where you found this misinformation.
I read it in one of one the comments here. Is that not the same book? Aren't you Raphaël Hertzog?
No, it's not the same book. The one that will be translated is here (former edition here). Or you might want the official web page I maintain for the French version.
Concerning the book you linked to, yes I am the Raphael Hertzog who contributed to the translation, but the original book was not in German but in English (even though the author—Martin Krafft—speaks German as his mother tongue).
I think repeatedly calling your book a "bestseller" because it happened to be a "bestseller" on amazon.fr for a single morning (or perhaps even less time than that) is misleading.
Thanks for the clarification, I had not understood your point. I call it a bestseller because it is a bestseller for my editor, we sold over 16000 copies of this book and for a technical book on the French market, this is really good. Most technical books barely achieve 1000-1500 copies (the point where the editor usually starts making some money). The fact that we were on Amazon's listing is just a little anecdote to introduce the story...
Re-translating it to French would not be a copyright violation, no. It's a new work. But my hope is that the free English version will have success so that I can convince my editor to release the original French version under a free license.
Did you miss the part of the plan where we want to publish it under a free license? That said you're right. I truly hope the sales of paper copies will support my Debian work (dpkg maintenance among other things) once the book is available world-wide.
It's not like I have not been trying to get support as dpkg maintainer (head over to raphaelhertzog.com)... but the truth is that donations are not allowing me to work on dpkg, but the royalties of the French book did!
BTW the book has been updated and extended for each Debian release since 2004, so it's still very relevant.
Unfortunately we don't own the rights on the French version, so we can't liberate it and then do the translation. But we do have all the rights on the translated version though. So we're going to liberate that one if we meet our fundraising goals.
And it's exactly this. Ulule.com is a kickstarter like service. Instead of using Amazon Payments they use Paypal but the base concept is really the same.
Thomas Goirand (aka GPLHost-Thomas) is another Debian developer but he has no interest in this operation.
So send your donation over there: http://raphaelhertzog.com/support-my-work/ You should not speak too quickly :-)
2-hour lunch breaks, 15 min smoke breaks, 5 week vacations, and 35 hours work week. It all adds up.
Plus the original work was in German. I don't understand why they would first translate it in French, and then translate the French version into English. That part makes no sense to me.
I do not smoke and this is an original book in French. It's not a translation of a German book. I don't know where you found this misinformation.
Plus it sounds like they hired a sleazy American marketing expert. Those guys are not cheap. That's probably already 10,000 euros down the drain from the get go on the Marketing guy alone.
I did not hire anyone...
Fortunately, there will be proofreaders for the book... ;-)
Concerning the amount, you need to be aware that the rewards have a price and the net value that will be left for us is much lower. Cf the FAQ: http://debian-handbook.info/faq/#q2.2 And about letting the community do the translation, it's something of a last resort because you really need a small set of translators to have a quality result (i.e. consistent). It's also covered here: http://debian-handbook.info/faq/#q3.1