Re: Debian Book Published
On Sun, 19 Oct 1997, Jim Pick wrote:
> > I haven't yet figured out how Dale's book fits in the distribution.
> > We should probably discuss this on the policy list.
It doesn't fit in at all. Really. I mean it.
> I brought this up before, but now that we have a nice piece of documentation
> specific to Debian, I'll bring it up again.
I would call it a 'piece', but I wouldn't say much more about it except it
plain old sucks. It doesn't go very far and the retail deal looks like
the typical ripoff where a $5 paperback is bundled with CDs to jack the
price up to $37.95. It would be nice if someone actually wrote a book
about Debian.
> We should have a separate documentation distribution with looser rules
> so we can collect documentation from various sources on the 'net and
> elsewhere. The documentation need not be 'free', but it should
> be freely redistributable in electronic form. Basically a non-free
> for docs.
>
> How about it?
How about forgetting the whole idea? It says you can print hardcopy for
personal use. Does that mean that if I print it out for 'personal use' but
my reading it benefits my business or employer that I will be sued? These
types of restrictions are cooked up by idiots. Or how about the user who
is mostly a hobbyist but uses his Debian system once a month to earn
$20.00 or so? And so on until you all can see that people who write such
restrictions are total f. morons because there is no clear legal
definition of 'personal use'. Besides, corporations don't read but people
do. I suppose I could print a million copies of this 'book' and sell them
because they are intended for personal use. After all, the reading is for
personal enhancement. If the companies benefit economically from enhanced
people, that doesn't violate anything.
If SPI wants to endorse or promote this type of thing, I would suggest
that it's time to turn out the lights and go home. Such restrictions don't
belong in a free software project.
I would much rather see a book that is available without CDs (at a lower
price, of course). If they want to protect it, then don't allow anyone
else to print it on paper. Is that so complicated to do? Of course, it
can't be part of Debian unless it is free a la GPL.
BTW - I took a quick look at it and it looks like large parts of it are
taken from already free material. It would be nice to know if the 'custom
CD' can be freely copied/shared. If not, then it's Microscheetz 95 again.
The book may be worth a few dollars, but the $37.95 bundle????
I suppose I could put it on CD and sell it for $2 with an encouragement
for every *person* who gets it to print it out for *personal* use.
PW
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