Book idea--further thoughts

Wed Feb 1 15:29:10 UTC 2006

I believe O'Reilly just might publish copyleft texts. Eric Raymond's
essays in The Cathedral and the Bazaar are copyleft, Open Publication
License, version 2.0, and O'Reilly publishes a hard copy. The
important thing is the Official imprimatur, because that's not
transferable. Plus, there's the added vaue of a CD; plus, purchasing
an opensource book is often an underhanded way of making a donation;
plus, an official Ubuntu book would be something that could be hawked
directly from the front page of the Ubuntu website, which would
guarantee a certain number of click-throughs and thus purchases. Also,
there's the matter of the license: why not use a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license? See how that works? The
copyright holder would be the only one able to commercially relicense
the text, while everyone else would be able to freely distribute and
update it. As for self-publishing, there's Lulu.com, but I don't know
how cheesy the finished product is.

On 2/1/06, Michael Steinberg <mlstein at rochester.rr.com> wrote:
> Thanks, everyone, for the responses and ideas. Reading them, I've come
> to think that a physical book has some real advantages, especially for
> a beginner's text. There's something very reassuring about a volume
> lying there next to the computer, especially because the book always
> boots.
>
> It also seems that a book that could be found in bookstores would be of
> some value in making Ubuntu visible. And this leads to a few other
> observations based on my experiences in the publishing world:
>
> It would be super if the Doc team or whoever had the "authority" would
> consider making this an official Ubuntu publication; of course I'd do
> whatever is needed to win their imprimatur. I would be happy to
> approach No Starch, Peachpit, etc., with the prospect; a revised
> outline & a sample chapter or two would make a good proposal package,
> and the official Ubuntu label would surely help. (In keeping with my
> desire to help Ubuntu out, I'd contribute royalties to support the
> project.) But this would pretty much put an end to the idea of free
> distribution through the website, either through Shipit as some
> suggested or even via a large number of pdfs. Publishing is a tough
> business, and I doubt that any publisher would invest in a book if they
> knew that Ubuntu would be undercutting them by making it available for
> nothing. The same is true about bookstores; competition for shelf space
> is intense, and between two books of equal appeal the loser will be the
> one that buyers could download or order free.
>
>   What about self-publishing (i.e., a Ubuntu Press)? It's easy & fairly
> cheap these days to produce a book. The snag is distribution. If Ubuntu
> decided to give away the books through Shipit--assuming that there's
> the money to burn, which I wonder about--the result would be that it
> wouldn't get into bookstores. If it's sold on the website instead (and
> remember, it's free as in speech, not as in beer), there would still be
> problems. Bookstores won't deal with small publishers--too much
> paperwork, not enough stock to make the time & effort worthwhile. You'd
> have to distribute through Baker & Taylor (in the US) or similar
> wholesaler, and you're not likely to get the book into too many stores
> anyway because you don't have sales staff. Selling it through the web
> site creates its own hassles, since Ubuntu's not set up for that. The
> Ubuntu Store is through Cafe Press, which spares Ubuntu all the worries
> of warehousing, fulfillment, banking arrangements and credit cards,
> customer service, etc. I don't know if a similar deal could exist for a
> book, and for just one book it probably wouldn't be worth it.
>
> Conclusions? Right now I'd say that an "official" book through an
> established publisher would be the best choice, and it might be
> possible to negotiate with the publisher to allow a number of the most
> important "how-to" chapters to exist in downloadable form on the Ubuntu
> site. This may be the best compromise and be the most beneficial for
> the distro.
>
> I assume this would require a fairly high-level policy decision and I'm
> hoping someone will fill me in on that. I'd like to show up at the next
> meeting; is it this coming Friday or the next one? 1400 GMT or 2200?
> How does a newbie like me find out?
>
> Again, thanks to all.
>
> Michael Steinberg
>
> *************************************************************
> Michael Steinberg
> 109 Rutgers Street
> Rochester, New York  14607-2840
>
> (585) 242-0538 (h)      (585) 295-8544 (o) (585) 298-9323 (fax)
> *************************************************************
>
> Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to
> keep going back and beginning all over again.
>                                                 ----Andre Gide
>
> --
> ubuntu-doc mailing list
> ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-doc
>
>
>

--
-J. Method