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<title>Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)</title>
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<h1>Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:terry@animats.net">terry@animats.net</A></li>
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<li><em>Subject</em>: Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)</li>
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<li><em>From</em>: Gary Lawrence Murphy <<A HREF="mailto:garym@canada.com">garym@canada.com</A>></li>
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<li><em>Date</em>: 25 Oct 1999 03:42:58 -0400</li>
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<li><em>Cc</em>: <A HREF="mailto:ldp-discuss@lists.linuxdoc.org">ldp-discuss@lists.linuxdoc.org</A></li>
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<li><em>Organization</em>: TeleDynamics --- the Art of Being There</li>
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<li><em>References</em>: <<a href="msg00524.html">199910250505.PAA05732@albert.animats.net</a>></li>
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<li><em>Reply-to</em>: Gary Lawrence Murphy <<A HREF="mailto:garym@canada.com">garym@canada.com</A>></li>
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<li><em>Resent-cc</em>: recipient list not shown: ;</li>
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<li><em>Resent-date</em>: 25 Oct 1999 07:44:04 -0000</li>
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<li><em>Resent-from</em>: <A HREF="mailto:ldp-discuss@lists.debian.org">ldp-discuss@lists.debian.org</A></li>
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<li><em>Resent-message-id</em>: <MXoulD.A.IpG.ApAF4@murphy></li>
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<li><em>Resent-sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:ldp-discuss-request@lists.debian.org">ldp-discuss-request@lists.debian.org</A></li>
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<li><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:garym@mail.wccweb.com">garym@mail.wccweb.com</A></li>
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<pre>
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>>>>> "t" == terry <terry@animats.net> writes:
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t> Why do you have a problem with the LDP wanting to do it? ie,
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t> produce free documentation? All you're proposing is that it
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t> take a step backwards.
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Not at all. I am only stating that PR is not an issue. I just cracked
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open the new Mandrake and there again, a long index of HOWTOs with
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instructions to get them from your CD or go to the LDP for the latest
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editions.
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My qualm is only that promoting the LDP is unnecessary. The LDP only
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needs to promote itself to applications groups and owners of howto
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websites to ask if they might consider donating their work to the
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library, but if it becomes a good place to look for docs, popularity
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will follow from content, not the other way around.
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t> Yes, so why do you want to disease the LDP?
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Disease it by suggesting it focus on documenting Linux? I don't follow
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your logic here --- I think you may have cross-read some messages.
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t> completely free documentation, but now includes non-free
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Ah .. yes, you have cross-read some emails. This is a different
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thread. This thread is about the need to promote the LDP through
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promotions and appearances, and the need to counter the collateral
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damage done by the SlashDot critics.
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t> documentation in its library, they'll know they won't need to
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t> bother with worrying about whether to do free stuff any more,
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t> non-free is ok.
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Non-free, free. Do you really think, honestly, that it matters?
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Up until May of this year, I owned precisely 7 computer books, not
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counting three I helped write. That was all I had to show for 25
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years of professional and academic computing. I get all my info from
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the source code, from free docs, from black-box probing and from the
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newsgroups. My brother, on the other hand, subscribes to two computer
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book clubs and has filled a whole wall of his office with computer
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books.
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The main difference was that I was in research and he was in industry.
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I was just too poor to buy books when I started whereas he lacked the
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time to sift the then-fledgling internet (you had to download files
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via email in 1987). Today, if you wanted to build the same Linux
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office system my company uses every day, you'd need many, many HOWTOs
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and a lot of imagination and experiment, and would get no clue which
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docs you needed until you stumbled upon each problem. You can,
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however, (apparently) buy a book full of office-computing recipies.
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Yes, I would love to have the LDP make some money from that book, but
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it does not matter. Pride, fall, and all that jazz. I write
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commercial software, and I write GPL software (don't worry, nothing
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famous unless you are in the newspaper business, or in augmented
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reality research) and I have no problems doing either. If I write an
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app for an industry vertical, like an ISDN switch and my client owns
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it, I don't think the world really cares. I'd only draw the line if
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they asked to patent it. Fortunately, some of my clients are open to
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my creating apps for them under the GPL, and more and more in the past
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7 months have expressed an interest in the phenomenon.
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And, yes, writing commercial software does command more of my time,
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but I blame my ex-wife's high-paid lawyers for that ;) But it doesn't
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stop me or discourage me from participating in open source, and
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certainly doesn't dissuade me from promoting it.
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t> If you think there is some good value to be obtained by
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t> bringing free and non-free documentation under one umbrella
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t> then go create one, but I don't see why you want the LDP to be
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t> that organisation.
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I don't think I said they should. I believe, in that other thread, I
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said that *I* would *if* I were in charge (which is not very likely,
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is it) and in so doing, I would gain the funding I needed to do the
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fun stuff. LDP is half-way there, so that is why I'd want to leverage
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the brand-name reputation (forget the slashdot crowd, they probably
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don't read docs anyway). If I began a new startup, I'd need to spend
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a long time and many lean years to get where the LDP is today in
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public profile --- that is where the OSWG is at today.
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Right now, I primarily recruit opensource developers and LDP authors,
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not to "steal them away" from free software and documentation, but
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very much the opposite: Because they can use their notes, and their
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enthusiasm to ramble on about how things _should_ be done, they write
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quality work quite quickly and easily. My contracting lets them make
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some easy cash doing what they were doing _anyway_, and allows them to
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say 'no' to a few more days of (often non-linux) work. We don't give
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them 'exclusive' contracts, and we don't hush them. They are free to
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do anything they like with the knowledge they acquire while writing
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for us, but the corporate reality is (today) that they cannot re-use
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the exact text they put in our books.
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Recruiting from the community is our policy. I don't care if they are
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famous or just a fringe member, so long as they know the subject and
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can write well enough that our editors can make sense of it. We
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produce tech trade books, not personality books. You won't get on
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Regis and Cathy Lee writing for us. The only important ingredient is
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content and I welcome anyone who knows the content.
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Those who sweat it out to become lead authors can earn several
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months of paid vacation (many titles make over $2000/month in
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royalties) so they can relax from the rat-race and concentrate on
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their "labour of love", thereby improving it, thereby obsolescing
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their own book, thereby assuring themselves a repeat contract the next
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year. I am _assuming_ an LDP author will not waste the notes they
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used to write for me. They will immediately turn around and fold the
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new information into their LDP documents. The free doc does not
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compete with their royalties, but quite the opposite, it is the best
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advertising for their book (and the book is the best advertising for
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the LDP) --- I would _love_ to pay them to write directly for the LDP,
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but for the present moment, the best I can do is to 'borrow' them for
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two or three months and pay them for 6 or 7. What they actually do
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with those free months is up to them, but I'm idealistic enough to
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believe they won't spend it rockclimbing.
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What I don't want to encourage is what I am seeing in DocBook these
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days, and what has plagued UML from the start: Every question is met
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with "Wait for my book" and yet the online docs are so bad, I really
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have my doubts if their books will be any better. By comparison,
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I bought Alessandro's book _because_ he's done free work that I knew,
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and because I therefore trusted he'd put my money to good use.
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t> I can't help but think that you're confused and don't really
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t> know what it is that you're seeking: Lots of Linux
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t> documentation, or lots of free Linux documentation.
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Black, white, 68% grey, does it matter?
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at least now, both message threads are the same subject ;)
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--
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Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@linux.ca>: office voice/fax: 01 519 4222723
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TCI - Business Innovations through Open Source : <A HREF="http://www.teledyn.com">http://www.teledyn.com</A>
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Canadian Co-ordinators for Bynari International : <A HREF="http://ca.bynari.net/">http://ca.bynari.net/</A>
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Moderator, Linux Education Group: <A HREF="http://www.egroups.com/group/linux-ed">http://www.egroups.com/group/linux-ed</A>
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--
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</pre>
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<ul><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>:
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<li><strong><a name="00528" href="msg00528.html">Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)</a></strong>
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<ul><li><em>From:</em> terry@animats.net</li></ul></li>
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</ul></li></ul>
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<ul><li><strong>References</strong>:
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<ul>
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<li><strong><a name="00524" href="msg00524.html">Re: Informal survey (was Re: Banner ads)</a></strong>
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<ul><li><em>From:</em> terry@animats.net</li></ul></li>
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</ul></li></ul>
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