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Prentice Hall To Publish Open Content Licensed Books

Posted by timothy on Sun Jan 05, 2003 10:34 PM
from the you-can-call-him-bruce dept.
Programming IT Technology
lma writes "Bruce Perens has convinced Prentice Hall to publish a series of books under an Open Source license. The 'Bruce Perens' Open Source Series' will be available first as hardcopy in bookstores, and the Open Source text will be available electronically a few months later. Prentice Hall is counting on people buying the books even though the electronic version will be freely available later. I like the model, since I prefer to read paper, but like the electronic version for reference."
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  • My prediction... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anand_S (638598) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:37PM (#5023128)
    The Microsoft Press will be pissed about this. "Open Source books will be the death of the industry!"

    • Re:My prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bruce Perens (3872) <bruce@pereELIOTns.com minus poet> on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:02PM (#5023231) Homepage Journal
      Let's give them a run for their money :-) To do that, we need to make this a big bookshelf. Want to write something? I need authors. It won't make you rich, but it will do good for both you and the world.

      Thanks

      Bruce

      • Re:My prediction... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Robotech_Master (14247) on Monday January 06 2003, @01:34AM (#5023820) Homepage Journal
        What you need to do is put the electronic version online before or concurrently with the print version. See the Baen Free Library [baen.com], Baen Webscriptions [webscription.net], and the Honor Harrington CD-ROM [stack.nl] (now hosted on-line in its entirety by express permission of Jim Baen).

        And see this quote from Jim Baen, on the Baen Bar:
        Baen has experienced a mysterious 50% increase in gross dollar sales in the previous year. Also, our "sellthrough" (percentage of books placed in the market that sell to end-point customers) has improved from the rather startling 63% to the truly stunning 74%. I'm tentatively blamiing this on my wacko e-net proclivities. (Insert a Crazy Eddie ad pastiche here)
        There's every sign that having the books available for free or cheap on-line has done nothing but good for the sale of print books by Baen. It might do the same for you.

        • Re:My prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Bruce Perens (3872) <bruce@pereELIOTns.com minus poet> on Monday January 06 2003, @12:07AM (#5023504) Homepage Journal
          Mostly I am looking for user or developer documentation for Free Software. I would hope that I'll get some of the software authors, but I recognize that many of them would rather code. Note also that writing a book does not make you wealthy (me neither). It doesn't pay as well as consulting. On the other hand, if you aren't working anyway... The benefit of writing a book is that you are valued more as an employee, consultant, or scholar. You know the cliche: He wrote the book about it!

          Bruce

            • Re:My prediction... (Score:5, Informative)

              by Bruce Perens (3872) <bruce@pereELIOTns.com minus poet> on Monday January 06 2003, @01:16AM (#5023742) Homepage Journal
              I did a list a while back, and it turned out that my authors are more in touch with new stuff than I am. For example, I think I might have mentioned intrusion detection, but didn't put Snort on the list. I would rather that you think about what you have invested your time in, and what special areas you can contribute to. Is there an area you currently have expertise in where the rest of the world would profit from a brain-dump?

              Thanks

              Bruce

  • Novel Concept, But Not the First (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CBNobi (141146) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:39PM (#5023133)
    Bruce Eckel's been releasing his programming books electronically [mindview.net] for the past few years. (Not sure of its licensing, however)

    This is probably one of the first cases of a publisher supporting this, however.

  • Assuming the quality of the titles... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nutrimentia (467408) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:41PM (#5023147) Homepage
    this may prove to be a defining moment in the battle of copyright control. If these books sell, and continue to sell after the electronic copy is available, it will add some serious weight to the argument that digital availability of information precludes sales and marketability.

    I'm a bit surprised they are publishing in hardcover instead of a Sam's/O'Reilley/etc sturdy paperback though.

  • Finally, I don't have to... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jmuzic1 (637784) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:43PM (#5023156)
    lug all my books home every day. I can see it now..."Open source may provide treatment for back pain"

  • Oreilly / MySQL Reference Manual (Score:4, Informative)

    by wideBlueSkies (618979) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:43PM (#5023157) Journal
    >>This is a tremendous departure for a mainstream publisher.

    ORA [oreilly.com] has done this already with a MySQL book. At the time of publication no less.

    Granted, it's the printed version of the electronic reference manual. But it IS an open source book. I think they're calling it O'Reilly Community press.

    Additionally, ORA open sources some of their out of prints.

  • Proof reading! (Score:5, Funny)

    by asifyoucare (302582) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:43PM (#5023158)
    Some proof-reading wouldn't go astray. The subtitle of the second book on the web site says "Configuring, Usin and Mainting a Complete Programming Environment".

    If I ever want to do any mainting or usin, I'll certainly use this book.

  • Amen to that! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rindeee (530084) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:46PM (#5023168)
    I will ALWAYS buy good 'ole ink and pulp as I much prefer reading them. For reference I much prefer the searchability and rapid access of electronic (and the ability to carry a bunch of them on my handheld). I have gone so far as to "un-bind" some of my favorites, scan them and OCR/index them so that I can search them electronically. Then I have to go buy another copy to replace the one I destroyed. No more! I say hurray for this. Now I just hope these books don't suck.

  • why do I suspect (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SHEENmaster (581283) <travis@@@utk...edu> on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:49PM (#5023184) Homepage Journal
    that when it finally comes out, months after the book, it will be in a clunky format such as pdf rather than something like sgml that we can convert to linked html or plain text as we desire.

    cat ebook.txt | grep explorer | grep bug | less to get all the paragraphs relating to the latest explorer bug.

    For an ebook format, I want something parsable and convertabl; pdf meets neither requirement.

    • Re:why do I suspect (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bruce Perens (3872) <bruce@pereELIOTns.com minus poet> on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:56PM (#5023456) Homepage Journal
      It will be in an editable format. We would like your changes for the second edition, after all. Unfortunately, they are still operating a .doc file shop there at Prentice. But we have OpenOffice, which can turn .doc files into its own XML format, as well as several other open formats. I have had no problem using OpenOffice to read the books.

      Bruce

  • Open Source? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Quaoar (614366) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:52PM (#5023192)
    Does that mean I get to rewrite who won the civil war in my history book? SCORE!

  • Copyleft is important. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bcrowell (177657) on Sunday January 05 2003, @10:57PM (#5023205) Homepage
    I run a web site that catalogs free books (see my sig), and I've seen many many cases where books are originally free for downloading, but then the author's web site mysteriously disappears, and your only option is to buy the print version. This is exactly the sort of thing that gave Richard Stallman conniptions and led to the GPL for software: the idea that software could go from being free to being unfree. In fact, I see it as a much bigger problem for books than for software.

    Too bad there doesn't seem to be any information about what the license is, or what editable form they'll be available in. He does refer to the possibility that profs could edit it and make their own versions.

    • Open Publication License 1.0 with no options taken. It passes the Open Source Definition in that form. OSI will not certify the license because it is actually 4 separate licenses, depending on which of those boxes you check, and only one of them is an Open Source license. I'll try to get an OSI-certified license in place for later works. OSI has really only done one so far that is for text rather than software.

      Thanks

      Bruce

  • I have recently completed a book for Addison-Wesley. Well, almost completed--it needs to make it through copyediting and indexing still, which will probably (unfortunately) mean several more months until it is printed.

    One thing that I did--with permission of my publisher--is make the text of the book completely available during writing, and it will remain so into the future. Shameless plug, you can find it at http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/ [gnosis.cx]. I cannot say honestly that being allowed to provide it this way was a deciding issue in choosing a publisher; but it certainly does make me feel better about writing the book.

    Admittedly, this is not quite the same thing as an OpenContent license. You are free to read the book at the URL listed, and print yourself a personal copy. But the book is under copyright, and you cannot reproduce and sell the text yourself. Still, I believe it is a step in the right direction... maybe my next book will manage to go a step farther.

    Yours, David...

  • This is perfect (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RainbowSix (105550) on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:06PM (#5023248) Homepage
    Take for example my paper copy of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've read that thing probably a dozen times. A beautiful work of art. But, there is always that time when I want to find a quote for my website or to have a laugh with someone. That is when the text files are essential.

    I know I'll be buying more books when I know I can search through them, because not every book I've read has been easily locatable scans on my favorite ftp sites :)

  • Ripping off college students one edition at a time (Score:5, Funny)

    by LostCluster (625375) on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:32PM (#5023369) Homepage
    The books will cost $50-$75 dollars while they're being sold at university bookstores, then released free as soon as the course is over so that the resale value of the book is zero.

    However, the free book will be useless for the next semester's courses, because a new edition will have been released to update the book for the changing technologies, of course.

    See, it is possible to make big money with open source... although this wasn't what we had in mind.

  • This is just "value adding" to the book (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nebbian (564148) on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:51PM (#5023438) Homepage Journal
    Something that a lot of people don't seem to realise is that an electronic version, freely downloadable on the web, is more like an extra feature than a piracy mechanism.

    I see a time in the future where books will have a little tickbox on the cover that says "Electronic version available". This is an extra feature of the book, much like those textbooks with questions and answers in the back, or a bonus CD-ROM.

    It's all a question of value -- I buy books for the tactile dead-tree-ness of it, not for the raw bits and bytes of the information within. I much prefer using dead trees rather than electronic versions of textbooks, because they are so much more convenient for me.

    So for me, this is a value-add for the book. If there were two books on the shelf for the same price, one with this extra free downloadable version, and one without, then I'd choose the one with the extra bits. Who wouldn't?
    But given the choice between downloading it and then printing it out, vs just buying the damn thing, I'd buy it. Perhaps that's just me, but I much prefer well-bound books to dog-eared collections of paper sheets.

    Well done Bruce! Good to see you're not afraid to embrace new paradigms. I'm sure it will do well :-)

  • topics? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drDugan (219551) on Monday January 06 2003, @12:03AM (#5023495) Homepage
    really -- this was asked above but not aswered.

    What topics are you looking for? Do they have
    to relate to open source software? Some
    guidelines would be niec if you are soliciting
    authors.

    • Well, I think I have only seen one book proposal refused so far. So, we are open to what you propose.

      They should relate to Open Source software, either as user documentation or as developer documentation. I suppose there are some "Open Source" topics that are not about software - either hardware or policy - and those would work too. If you want to do something else, but it's a technical book, we might be able to help.

      Generally you can ship a CD with the book, so you can make sure that all of the examples are distributed, and you can make sure the version of the software you are writing about is distributed with the book.

  • Bruce Perens - The biggest karma whore ever? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tmasssey (546878) on Monday January 06 2003, @01:07AM (#5023710) Homepage Journal
    Wow! I've never seen someone respond so much to a topic they were related to, and get so much karma because of it. Share the wealth, buddy! :)

    Actually, it's nice to see someone so personally involved: with his own projects, the community in general, and with individuals. If the content of these books are competitive, they will definitely move to the front of my buying list.

  • Reference vs. Introductory (Score:5, Informative)

    by Trolling4Dollars (627073) on Monday January 06 2003, @02:25AM (#5023949) Journal
    What I've noticed when I buy dead tree books is that I get much more value out of the books that can be used as reference tools. Typically these are books that touch on subjects that aren't quickly moving targets. For example, I recently bought an O'Reilly book on Bash at a used book store. The book isn't 100% up to date (1999 I believe), but it has helped me move a long way in my Bash scripting and is still very relevant. It's a great reference book. However, I also bought a book that explained what W.I.N.E. is and provided some usage examples at about the same time. Unfortunately, that book is incredibly out of date now and since it was also published in 1999. At this point, it's just s brick. (The W.I.N.E. project changed the way the config files work, so this book is really useless as a reference book)

    With that said, I'd like to point out that if these books are expected to sell as dead tree items, they should probably be more "reference" books than introductory books and probably deal with subject matter that changes slowly over time. The addition of the electronic version makes it relatively easy to keep THAT version up to date, but it doesn't help the owners of the dead tree version when they are not able to access the Internet.

    As an aside, I'd also like to point out the electronic books might benefit from being on CD-RW as opposed to CD-R. Considering that CD-RWs are pretty ubiquitous these days, a dead tree book could come with the book in electronic format on a CD-RW. That way, a user could keep their electronic version up to date by running an "updater" program that would check for the latest version, open the disc for writing, add changes to the disc, and then close the session to make it readable again. THAT would add enough value to the dead tree version that I think people would be kept interested in all three approaches: Paper Book, Online Version, and CD-RW distributed with book. The only reason people don't typically care about included CDs is that they become irrelevant VERY quickly. Just a thought.

    • Re:Nice title (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bruce Perens (3872) <bruce@pereELIOTns.com minus poet> on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:08PM (#5023261) Homepage Journal
      I sincerely did not ask for it to be named after me. That's Prentice's idea, and they need my name there to differentiate them from any other Open Source line that someone else does. I find it a bit embarassing, but will live with it for the good of making books that are Open Source licensed.

      Actually, it has created tremendous difficulty for me. I have to get all of the doors widened in my home now, so that I can get my head through them :-)

      Bruce

      • Re:Nice title (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bruce Perens (3872)
        Richard will be annoyed. But then I've done a few things to piss him off lately. I hope he will be somewhat consoled by the fact that the books are free software.

        Bruce

    • Re:Astronomy (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bruce Perens (3872)
      Please be sure to register the book with Creative Commons. I know that there's a Debian Astronomy package set, besides the ham radio package set which has a lot of satellite stuff. Lots of people can use it.

      Thanks

      Bruce

    • Re:Paper pricing (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bruce Perens (3872) <bruce@pereELIOTns.com minus poet> on Sunday January 05 2003, @11:18PM (#5023311) Homepage Journal
      Anyone in the know about Open Source will understand that the books are free text when they see my name.

      The copyright page says it's OPL licensed, although there is a bug in the copyright page which I will fix in the electronic version, because someone didn't understand the OPL when putting together the copyright page. It goes to the trouble to say that you can use it under the OPL, and then after that says "no copying". Duh!

      Bruce

    • I would like to hear from translators who want to produce Open Source books and make a little money too.

      When we put the books online, there will be an "ask bruce" on the site.

      Thanks

      Bruce

    • >>Also, we'll probably see a rash of lawsuits or lobbying by the textbook industry to help them maintain the monopoly they have. After all, we wouldn't want continually improving and affordable materials to fall into the hands of our students. Oh! The horror!

      Really. It's my first year, second semester (well, that's misleading; officially it's my fourth, so I'm taking higher level stuff than your typical second semester person) at Penn State and I'll be paying ~$450 for ALL USED books. Outrageous, especially considering that tuition+room&board+fees for me is little over $1000/semester.
    • I'd position the current paradigm we are using in these terms:

      These are paper books just like all of the other paper books in the book store. We pay the authors the same, we wholesale them the same, and you pay for them the same. They happen to be under a license that lets you shove them in the copier with impunity. A bit later, not too long, you get nice clean electronic "source code". People who don't want to pay for the book could use it, but we don't think there really are a ton of them. The license is a real plus to the author, as the books need never die even if the publisher loses interest, and there is no fight about electronic rights as authors are having with most publishers. We might be able to do second editions a bit more often, if we get enough community help.

    • Re:What about tomorrow? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by yeOldeSkeptic (547343) on Monday January 06 2003, @01:05AM (#5023699)
      But, what happens when books become like CDs (easy and inexpensive to make exact functionality copies)? Would enough people pay for the hardcopy to support the author enough to put food on his table?

      Yes they will. If they value their time and the book enough. Even if a laser printed copy of a downloadable is cheaper by a few dollars from the press-printed book, I strongly believe that most people would still go for the convenience and quality of the latter. Why?

      Well, 10 dollars is certainly worth much less than the time that I have to spend printing, collating and having the book bound professionally. I would rather pay the extra ten bucks and avoid the aggravation. So, yes, there will be a market for open books for as long as the value of the book is much greater than the cost of buying it.

      As I see it, open books will revolutionize the industry in the following way.

      1. No book will ever be out of print. Troff is several decades old but it is still alive and kicking in the form of groff. Because groff is open sourced, it will continue to exist in the net somewhere and it will continue to be improved even if only incrementally. Compare that with say, WordPerfect which is almost on the way to extinction. (Please no counter-arguments about warez or how it is still on your hard disk!)
      2. Financially successfull open licensed books will be of a better quality than comparable closed-licensed books. Why? Because in order for the book to succeed it must be of the quality where people are willing to pay for it when a downloadable copy is available. This leads to...
      3. Cost of publishing will drop. Publishers will be able to test probable success of any book cheaply by having it downloadable on the net. All the publisher has to do is log all downloads (in order to count popularity) and provide a survey form inquiring whether the reader would buy a hard-copy of this book if it is available on the market and for how much. No need to print 10,000 copies of a book and then discover what a crap it is. However, it could also mean...
      4. Writing will cease to be as profitable a profession as it is today. But as RMS himself will say (with paraphrasing) just because book writing is not very profitable does not condemn you to write books. If writing books won't put food on your table, then perhaps you better find some other profession. On the other hand...
      5. Some Joe will discover a hidden talent in writing. It is so easy to publish an open book, (put a copy on the net while he is creating it) that many bored and talented individuals may just give it a try. Publishers may just discover the next Stephen King, Richard Feynmann and Donald Knuth this way! It could even be you!

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