PickAxe 2 licensing

[zuzu]

That would be great, although if you do this, please consider HTML.
It is a little easier to browse HTML than PDF.

--- SER

pdf contains more useful data than html. publish a pdf and anyone can
convert it to html. or if you're feeling ambitious, release a disc
including pdf, postscript, tex, dvi, and html.

-z

 

[Sean O'Dell]

I could imagine that folks who paid for the PDF early might feel upset
about this.

Crazy idea: a website that lets people search the entire contents of the book,
but which only returns very short excerpts (like one partial sentence) and
their matching page numbers. License various web site hosters, like
ruby-docs.org and other potentially willing participants, to install a mirror
of the web site.

Sean O'Dell

 

[Cameron McBride]

Crazy idea: a website that lets people search the entire contents of the book,

but which only returns very short excerpts (like one partial sentence) and
their matching page numbers. License various web site hosters, like
ruby-docs.org and other potentially willing participants, to install a mirror
of the web site.

awesome idea.

I really hate when I grab a hard copy and start constructing the grep
command in my head for what I want. An index just isn't the same.

Cameron

 

[Dave Thomas]

Crazy idea: a website that lets people search the entire contents of
the book,

Wouldn't a PDF let you do this?


Cheers

Dave

 

[Cameron McBride]

Crazy idea: a website that lets people search the entire contents of

Wouldn't a PDF let you do this?

right, but I think it was meant as an alternative in case the PDF is
unavailable or wasn't purchased. At least thats how it translated in
my brain. Plus, it'd be great propaganda
for buying the book when you ship people to a link of specific references.

Cameron

 

[Sean O'Dell]

Wouldn't a PDF let you do this?

You could release the web site at the same time as the book and not worry
about people pirating a PDF around.

Sean O'Dell

 

[Kirk Haines]

Crazy idea: a website that lets people search the entire contents of
the book,

Wouldn't a PDF let you do this?[/QUOTE]

It does, but I think the idea is that it would be most useful for people who
buy the hard copy of the book as a sort of super-index. It doesn't return
enough of the body of work for it to be useful to someone without the book,
but with the book in hand it would help one quickly find whatever one needed
out of the book.


Kirk Haines

 

[Matthew Margolis]

You could release the web site at the same time as the book and not worry
about people pirating a PDF around.

Sean O'Dell

It is very easy to download an entire web page for distribution. I have
a few C++ doc sites downloaded so I can read them when I am traveling.
Using a freeware program I had the entire site on my hard drive in just
a few seconds.
I don't think a pdf or web page can offer any real security in terms of
distribution. Even if you password protect a pdf the document can be
distributed by a sharer with a text file containing the access code.
So in short, if they put a version online and the Ruby community grows
enough someone will probably start illegal distribution. As someone who
hopes to one day be published this makes me unhappy but it is the way
things seem to work with any sufficiently large community and a
copyrighted work.

-Matthew Margolis

 

[Dave Thomas]

So in short, if they put a version online and the Ruby community grows
enough someone will probably start illegal distribution. As someone
who hopes to one day be published this makes me unhappy but it is the
way things seem to work with any sufficiently large community and a
copyrighted work.

We sell PDFs of our existing books. Each is personalized with the name
of the buyer.

We did have someone release the books online. We tracked them down
using this name, and got the site shut down.

Now, it's not perfect: they'll be people who don't care, or who put
other people's copies on P2P networks, but in general it seems to be a
fairly good compromise.

I don't like restricted PDFs: if you buy something, I think you get the
right to use it.

Cheers

Dave

 

[Joao Pedrosa]

Hi,

We sell PDFs of our existing books. Each is
personalized with the name
of the buyer.

We did have someone release the books online. We
tracked them down
using this name, and got the site shut down.

Now, it's not perfect: they'll be people who don't
care, or who put
other people's copies on P2P networks, but in
general it seems to be a
fairly good compromise.

I don't like restricted PDFs: if you buy something,
I think you get the
right to use it.

Cheers

Dave

Cool, then please, make a digital version that I would
buy it in a second (with mastercard, please). ;-)

Cheers,
Joao



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[Lothar Scholz]

Hello Matthew,

MM> I don't think a pdf or web page can offer any real security in terms of
MM> distribution. Even if you password protect a pdf the document can be
MM> distributed by a sharer with a text file containing the access code.

A copy protection schema is just there to keep honest people honest.
Nothing else.

There are hundrets of books, from PDF's to privately scanned onces
like Stevens famous "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment"
available via my "EMule" P2P network. Even "The Ruby Way" and "Ruby in
21 days" are available illegally.

 

[Matthew Margolis]

We sell PDFs of our existing books. Each is personalized with the name
of the buyer.

We did have someone release the books online. We tracked them down
using this name, and got the site shut down.

Now, it's not perfect: they'll be people who don't care, or who put
other people's copies on P2P networks, but in general it seems to be a
fairly good compromise.

I don't like restricted PDFs: if you buy something, I think you get
the right to use it.

Cheers

Dave

I like that approach. It isn't foolproof but it is a pain to get
around. As I said above, for large all out piracy to happen the Ruby
community would have to be a lot bigger so that statistically there
would be more shady types who don't mind ripping people off. I guess
the best parallel would be the music industry. Only a small group of
people are ripping CDs but there are enough that wide scale sharing can
occur.
I agree with you about not using restricted PDFs for sold ebooks. It is
such an inconvenience for your legitimate customers.

In any case, I look forward to your upcoming books. I will probably
purchase both a paper and digital copy if version 2 is half as good as
version 1.

Sincerely,
Matthew Margolis

P.S. I am rereading The Pragmatic Programmer right now and wanted thank
you for creating such a beautiful resource.

 

[Sean O'Dell]

It is very easy to download an entire web page for distribution. I have

The web site only returns brief snippets, it doesn't let you browse the entire
book.

Sean O'Dell

 

[James Britt]

Like what amazon.com does? (Though amazon returns the whole page.)

James

 

[James Britt]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:57:01 +0900, Dave Thomas wrote



It does, but I think the idea is that it would be most useful for people who
buy the hard copy of the book as a sort of super-index. It doesn't return
enough of the body of work for it to be useful to someone without the book,
but with the book in hand it would help one quickly find whatever one needed
out of the book.

What about an ri plugin or extension, something that returns the normal
ri contents, but also gives a Pickaxe 2 page ref.

ri -pa2 String


(Maybe just patching the ri YAML files could accomplish this, if you
don't mind seeing it appear by default on all ri queries.)

Still, a simple HTML file on the the PragProg page with the book index
would be helpful for greps.

James

 

[zuzu]

It is very easy to download an entire web page for distribution. I have
a few C++ doc sites downloaded so I can read them when I am traveling.
Using a freeware program I had the entire site on my hard drive in just
a few seconds.
I don't think a pdf or web page can offer any real security in terms of
distribution. Even if you password protect a pdf the document can be
distributed by a sharer with a text file containing the access code.
So in short, if they put a version online and the Ruby community grows
enough someone will probably start illegal distribution. As someone who
hopes to one day be published this makes me unhappy but it is the way
things seem to work with any sufficiently large community and a
copyrighted work.

-Matthew Margolis

someone could OCR the hardcopy and release an illicit PDF as well.
many a .ru domain have my favorite fictions by neal stephenson,
william gibson, greg egan, et. al.

to make the belabored point, if people can view data they can save and
redistribute that same data. copy protection / drm is all smoke and
mirrors. only compiling software gets away with such trickery as well
as it does because really the computer views the data, not a person.

unless we're writing books for computers to read to themselves now?

-z

 

[Sean Russell]

pdf contains more useful data than html. publish a pdf and anyone can
convert it to html. or if you're feeling ambitious, release a disc
including pdf, postscript, tex, dvi, and html.

In general, I'd agree with you that PDF is a superior format if you
don't know what you're going to do with it. But, I'm buying the book,
and don't intend on printing the PDF, so most of PDF's strengths are
useless to me. HTML that is *designed* to be HTML is much better than
HTML generated from PDF.

--- SER

 

[Joao Pedrosa]

Hi,

someone could OCR the hardcopy and release an
illicit PDF as well.
many a .ru domain have my favorite fictions by neal
stephenson,
william gibson, greg egan, et. al.

to make the belabored point, if people can view data
they can save and
redistribute that same data. copy protection / drm
is all smoke and
mirrors. only compiling software gets away with
such trickery as well
as it does because really the computer views the
data, not a person.

unless we're writing books for computers to read to
themselves now?

-z

You are relying on ethics and rules. If it weren't for
ethics and rules, reverse engineering would be as
popular as programming is, and no, no compiling would
be enough to hide your secrets or make it not
recompilable.

Cheers,
Joao




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[gabriele renzi]

il Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:11:23 +0900, "Sean O'Dell" <[email protected]>
ha scritto::

Crazy idea: a website that lets people search the entire contents of the book,
but which only returns very short excerpts (like one partial sentence) and
their matching page numbers.

safari, the online bookstore, does something like this. Actually it
let's you look just the top of the page, not all.

 

[gabriele renzi]

il Sun, 11 Jul 2004 08:14:33 +0900, James Britt

ri -pa2 String

well, take a look at
ruby-talk:105782

it seem that the pickaxe reference is going to end in the ruby source
again (if I understand correctly)