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Debian

New Debian book coming out 22

Posted by CmdrTaco from the debian-the-novel dept.
El Jefe writes "Just saw on the Debian news site that a new debian book is coming out, including a CD. The whole thing will be GPL'd, btw. "
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New Debian book coming out More

New Debian book coming out

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  • debian books (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I was surprised to find out while poking around Amazon recently that there are a number of debian books, and more in production. I know one of the authors of the preannounced Debian Unleashed, and despite how bad most of the Unleashed books have tended to be, this one might somehow turn out to be promising.

    Debian is a distribution that greatly needs good documentation -- at least one or two solid reference-inclusive books, since it's much less self-explanatory than, say, RedHat (granted, much less so than Slackware or other more directly hackerish distributions). Newcomers to the package management, f'rinstance, could definitely use a decent primer and reference.

  • Oh, come off it. Richard Stallman encourages copylefted documentation. Granted, this book doesn't appear to be published in Gnu INFO format....

    Now you've made me dig out a 1986 edition of the GNU Emacs manual.

    "Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled "The GNU Manifesto", "Distribution" and "GNU Emacs General Public License" are included exactly as the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one."

    That sounds so much like a paper-published version of the GPL that I don't see your point at all.

    What Stallman has written with dismay about is things like the O'Reilly and Associates writing such good books about Free Software packages that it de-facto discourages freely distributable documentation from being written.

    Do versions of the GNU Emacs manual still have the cool cartoon of the guy in the suit on the back cover, like this 1986 edition does?

  • The whole book is GPL'd? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does that mean the source the book is produced from (not just a prettified HTML version) is on the CD?

    Not just a Postscript image, either. That's "Object Code." It's gotta be TeX (unless, frightful thought, closed-source means were used to produce the book).

    I'm assuming the source for the software that runs the printing press is also present, along with that for the binding machine and the paper mill?

    (and of course the source code for the software used to produce the CD-ROM, and a raw image of the CD-ROM on tape (paper tape) and the source code for the machinery in the mine, the foundry, etc. that produced the metal used to produce the machinery that produced the tape)
  • New Riders Publishing [newriders.com] has become enlightened about the whole Free Documentation thing. They've already published two books under Free licenses, and they seem ready to do more. AFAIK, they are still giving the authors (or Debian in this case) royalties on the book sales.
  • It's based on Debian 2.1. You are correct, the binary-i386 set for 2.1 is indeed a 2-CD set. However, the first CD contains all the more essential software; the second has the "extras". So, the book ships with the first CD in order to keep the cost down.
  • For one thing, you are commiting a fallacy: just because RMS says something is so (or rather, just because you claim he says it) does not make it so. Granted, I agree with him on a large number of issues, but it's better to see for yourself why something is so.

    It is not fundamentally incompatible with the GPL to include the GPL. The GPL text clearly states that it should not be modified. This is not a problem.

    I fail to see the problem with not specifying those sections that can not be modified (excepting, of course, the GPL which so states).

    Yes, pay do need to offer the source to your friend. (Keep in mind, it will be on the Web, so this is not as hard as you may think.) Good for you! Your friend then derives the same benefits here as from other GPL software, which has the same restrictions.

    Finally, I can say that, as an author of the book, it was not my choice to use the GPL; there were other factors at work. However, I am happy with the result and satisfied with its freeness.

  • Further Details: Yes, it's GPL'd! (Score:4)

    by John Goerzen ( 2781 ) on Thursday July 01, 1999 @04:55AM (#1823773) Homepage
    We are extremely pleased to have had this opportunity to work with such a major publishing firm (MCP/New Riders) on a project of such importance with a Free license such as this. Our ideals are indeed spreading, and this can only be a Good Thing.

    I also want to say a big thank-you to New Riders Publishing for their extremely friendly stance on this book with regard to the Free Software movement. The book is licensed entirely under the GPL; such is specified not only in the book also by contract. Ossama and I will be publishing the LaTeX and EPS sources as well as a HTML version online within a week or two -- possibly sooner, depending on how the logistics are worked out.

    The copyright on the book is assigned to Software in the Public Interest, Debian's parent organization.

    There seem to be some rather strange comments in this area from people that do not quite understand the GPL. The entire source code will be available online; GPL does not require the source code to be available on CD-ROM. Yes, this does mean LaTeX and EPS files.

    A portion of the sale of each book will go to the FSF, and Mr. Othman and myself will, of course, get some royalties as well.

    For those of you wishing to find more details, you may refer to my post [debian.org] to debian-devel.

    The book does include a CD-ROM of Debian. The book should be appearing in bookstores in about three weeks; online bookstores like Amazon, B&N, and Borders should be accepting pre-orders already for those interested.

    Thanks, John Goerzen

  • There is a libdpkg that comes with dpkg, but
    I don't think there's much documentation there.
    Use the source!

    Of course, you can also use ar, tar, and gzip to
    manipulate .deb files.

    Cheers,

    - Jim

  • Since RMS, the author of the GPL, says that the GPL is not an appropriate license for books, I am puzzled as to why it is being used.

    For one thing, a GPLed book cannot contain the text of the GPL itself. The GPL is, of course copyrighted, and its copyright says that you can copy it verbatim but you can't modify it (if you could modify it, you'd be changing the license).

    GNU manuals are distributed with a copyright that permits free copying, translation to other languages, and modification of most of the manual, but that also states what sections cannot be modified.

    If you use the GPL for a book, is it legal for me to give a printout to a friend? It seems I must offer them the Latex source, or even give them a written offer good for three years to get the source!

    I strongly suggest that the authors of this book take a look at these licenses, and possibly ask RMS for clarification. The GPL is not for books.

  • I've known RMS for years and because of my involvement with egcs/gcc, have exchanged tons of emails and had face-to-face discussions. I know what his position is.

    Your remark claiming that the gcc manual copyright "sounds so much like a paper-published version of the GPL" suggests that you have not read the GPL.

    Yes, RMS encourages copylefted documentation, but he never uses the GPL for that purpose and tells others the same thing. The FSF has never GPLed a manual. You are confused.

    RMS has stressed the importance of free manuals that grant permission to others to modify the manuals as the software they describe is modified. The copyright notice must state this. But that is done with explicit text, and the terms of the GPL that clearly apply to programs should not be used.

  • I have quick question. Anyone familiar with Debian PKG - is there some sort of development lib available that would help dealing with pkg , something ala rpmlib.a on redhat ??
    Thanks
  • Very interesting. I wonder if they got around the copyright the same way that Bruce Sterling retained the electronic rights to "The Hacker Crackdown."
  • I wonder if someone will abuse this. If its GPL'd then I can take it, modify it, and resell it. Actually I don't even need to modify it. Any publisher can now sell this book. And get into a price war with the real publsihers esp cuz they won't need to pay any royalties. Or I could just download it burn it onto a CD and sell it on cheap bytes. Again no royalties.
    I am not suggesting this is a good idea, or that someone should do this. Merely that they can.
    On the flip side I can now take this book and modify it so it fits with what I actually have at my site. So say I put files in X instead of Y I can change it to reflect this. I can also add documentation about other things I have installed. And remove things that I don't, instead of telling users to "Oh just ignore that seection".
    Translation - Good idea, I just hope nobody abuses it.
    -cpd
  • Publishers should sell dead trees, not other people's ideas.

    Right on!


  • So how is any of this abuse?? You're specifically ASSIGNED those rights to do all of that.

    That's what the authors WANT you to do with it.

    The authors only get money from the sale of the hard copy books that their publisher sells, and they KNOW that, and don't expect royalties from other people.

    since when do we advocate "free software, so long as you don't actually USE any of that pesky freedom"

  • The GPL copyleft says nothing about charging for the media and publishing costs of the book... *big hint here*.
  • God just announced that He is going to open-source the DNA of the trees that were cut down to produce the book.
  • Which version of the Debian distribution is it?
    I'd really like to see a nice debian book that includes Debian 2.1, but I also realize that Debian 2.1 may not fit on one cd. I think it's a two disc set actually. Well Debian 2.0 is good also, and a good new Debian book is very good too.
    GPL'd part does also rule.
  • Yea, many people still haven't realized what the potential behind Debian Packaging. With the power of apt-get (dist-upgrade too) it makes a good reason to stick with Debian, new books on Debian will most certainly help new comers to the distribution welcome to this way of going about.
    RedHat and Slackware are just wannabe's compared to Debian in my opinion.
  • Yea, I thought the point of GPL was to let people do that, not let them pay the original publisher for what they do to it. They want people to do what they want to do with it. Otherwise it wouldn't be distributed under GPL.

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