Oh well
On 3/23/07, Phrogz <gavin@refinery.com> wrote:
On Mar 23, 2:13 pm, "Rick DeNatale" <rick.denat...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> there's nothing in the post where he said that he wanted it for free.*cough*
(points to topic of thread)
--
Rick DeNatale
My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Thought I'd like to drop another issue in this thread which is often missed.
I absolutely love electronic versions of books - in fact, they are critical to
me being able to stay up to speed within my profession and allow me access to
lots of information I wouldn't normally have. This is because I'm a blind
programmer and printed books are simply not accessible.
However, I am somewhat frustrated and annoyed with corporate attitudes and
the way things are getting twisted and turned around in this area. Copyright
has changed from being protection for the author against their work being
'stolen' and claimed by others or even to ensure a resonable compensation for
their effort to government sanctioned protection for corporations and
protection of their market. Furthermore, it has an underlying assumption that
we are all immoral untrustworthy individuals who must be forced by legislation
into doing the "right thing". A premise which I reject.
The unfortunate consequence of this and the growing use of DRM means that users
like me are actually losing access to material. Commercial screen reader
manufacturers are having trouble keeping up with all the DRM mechanisms. As a
result, the cost of producing such software is increasing and the need to
upgrade often (at a cost) is increasing. There are no good open source
solutions available because you can't get access to the DRM scheme internals
unless you pay and even then, you couldn't include it in the source because of
nondisclosure issues and you cannot reverse engineer it without running the
risk of being sued etc.
Worse stil is the fact that if I want to access all this potentially wonderful
electronic information, I have to use Windows because this is really the only
platform with good quality commercial screen readers that will work well with
things like Adobe or other DRM enabled readers (there are many you cannot use
even then). Essentially, I lose my choice on what platform I wish to use and
I'm restricted to using expensive commercial software (and screen reader
software is expensive because of the limited market and high
maintenance/development costs).
Things are getting worse. Universities are now beginning to increasingly talk
about intelectual property and the need to use DRM for the material they
produce. This will make access to educational material even more difficult for
anyone with vision impairment. This is particularly unfortunate for many who
are vision impaired because it is often in areas of intellectual pursuits that
we can compete on a level playing field, provided we can access the learning materials.
then of course there is the broader question. If I purchase material that uses
a particular DRM scheme and that scheme gets depricated over time and replaced
by newer schemes, what responsability does the retailer have to ensure I can
still access the original material I purchased X years ago? Obviously, this
issue doesn't occur with printed books. However, with electronic books, it is
an issue.
All of this aside, the bit that irks me the most is the underlying assumption
implicit in all of this DRM that I'm essentially an immoral individual with a
flawed character and I have to be controlled by legislation and technology to
protect the revenue of a company. A company which must be using a flawed business model if
they cannot succeed without such protection. The salt is rubbed in further by
the fact its likely I still won't be able to access the material even when I do
pay for it.
To try and get things back on topic for the group - one of the things that made
me try out ruby was the availability of accessible material, such as the
pragmatic programmers ruby book etc. I'd be quite willing to pay for electronic
books like this one as long as I can then use it how I want - often, this means
converting it into text or html so that I can access it from my preferred
platform, Linux. The other good thing about getting into ruby is that there is
a wealth of material out there from users, such as blogs, guides and tutorials
that members of the ruby community have made available to anyone who wants
them.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
* Jerry Blanco, 23.03.2007 21:48:
Dave put a lot of hours writting that book and he deserves to be paid
for it. (BTW, great job, Dave!) Pragmatic Bookshelf guys put a lot of
hours publishing it and they deserve to be paid for it too.
I bought "Free as in Freedom" 
You go to a cab stop, and say 'I want you to take me to the airport,
but don't feel it's fair for you to charge me'. See what happens.
Nothing sound I suppose.
You go to a cafe and say 'I'll have a coffee but since coffee grows
from the Earth, and we ALL humans are entitled to a part of it, I
won't pay you.' See what happens.
Coffee is a good example to show that even people wo are nothing but
egoistic can have interest in paying a fair price. Of the money you
pay for the coffee little reaches the people that grow it and the
farmers can hardly survive with what they are paid. If you were one
of them what would you consider to do? Perhaps grow something that
pays a much better price? Especially if it is a plant that has always
been grown in the Region so that you already know how to grow it?
Good idea, isn't it?
Well, the plant I have in mind is Coca, the product that is sold
Cocain. Perhaps it is a good idea to pay the coffee farmers a fair
price than to pay even more than this amount of money for fighting
Coca plantations.
See? Paying a fair price can make sense even if only highly egoistic
interests are considered.
You go to Barnes and Noble and say 'I'll take this book, but since the
ideas contained thereof are not truly ownable by anybody, I won't pay
for it.' See what happens.
Hmm, the only case of a holder of IP where I consider it an ethical
duty not to buy products of is - believe it or not - Disney. Why
this? Disney has much of its production done in Korea. This were not
a problem if it weren't NORTH Korea. To my knowledge Disney is the
largest source of Dollars of the Juche regime. The the payment the
artists obtain is a mere joke. Since the day I know of this I have
not bought one single Disney item. Not even paper towel with Disney
motives on it (although it would have costed less than the paper
towel I bought instead). If I watch Disney movies (I like a number of
them) it is television broadcasts that are broadcast no matter if I
watch them or not. But even this does not necessarily imply to obtain
illegal copies of Disney movies.
In short my personal problem is usally that too little of the money
paid actually reaches the artists.
One side-remark: At least in Germany writing books is rather a hobby
than a job. It is very hard (almost impossible) to make one's living
only of writing books.
The subject is also a question of mentality. A german discounter has
invented the slogan "Geiz ist geil!" which may be translated as
Avarice is cool! but also as "Avarice is lecherous!" ("geil" comes in
both flavors the latter being the original one).
Many Germans seem to love this statement. If you say that avarice is
contemptible and one of the seven deadly sins people may even start
laughing at you.
Well, I also go to cheap discounters but usually not because of the
price. The products I usually buy aren't cheaper there but they are
usually fresher and often have a better quality. As it turned out
they are also less contaminated with pesticides than products sold
elsewhere and in the case of fresh products usually come from the
vincinity (which often is not true for products sold elsewhere).
The world is not at all black and white but full of different shades
of grey. Seems as I am not the first one to observe this
Josef 'Jupp' Schugt
--
Blog available at http://www.mynetcologne.de/~nc-schugtjo/blog/
PGP key with id 6CC6574F available at http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net/
Jerry Blanco wrote:
My 2 cents:
I bought Agile Web Development, even though I could have downloaded it
for free.
Dave put a lot of hours writting that book and he deserves to be paid
for it. (BTW, great job, Dave!) Pragmatic Bookshelf guys put a lot of
hours publishing it and they deserve to be paid for it too. BTW, no,
I'm not related to PB or Dave in any way.This whole conversation sounds a bit unrealistic to me. Forget the
whole 'is it theft', 'the law says blahblah', etc.
You go to a cab stop, and say 'I want you to take me to the airport,
but don't feel it's fair for you to charge me'. See what happens.
You go to a cafe and say 'I'll have a coffee but since coffee grows
from the Earth, and we ALL humans are entitled to a part of it, I
won't pay you.' See what happens.
You go to Barnes and Noble and say 'I'll take this book, but since the
ideas contained thereof are not truly ownable by anybody, I won't pay
for it.' See what happens.How is Dave's book different? Please people, let's forget the 'is it
legal', 'is it moral'... is it logical to rationalize downloading
books and not paying for them? (Please don't answer me. I know where I
stand, I know where you stand, and don't want to be bothered arguing
about this)
Excuse me for answering, but I don't believe that you do know where I stand.
I don't think anybody is arguing your point - in fact, I think you're in violent agreement with most here. Nobody is trying to rationalise getting something for nothing - that is to entirely miss the point, at least as I understand it.
While I've only been peripherally following this thread, and so may have missed something along the way, the main point of those saying "is it theft?" has been to emphasise the practical and moral difference between depriving someone of a physical item which they then no longer have access to, and obtaining without consent something for free which would otherwise have to be paid for, *without* denying the original owner access to it. Nobody (that I've seen, other than possibly the thread's originator) is saying that either is right, or trying to rationalise either. Conflating the two (as the big media owners like to do) is overly simplistic and highly emotive for those who understand the difference, because they understand what can be lost when that viewpoint becomes entrenched.
My own personal feelings on the matter are that the situation would be much simpler if copyright was not transferable, but that really *is* a conversation for another day...
--
Alex
No, professional integrity doesn't trump ethics. I recommend you take a
class in reading comprehension. I don't ignore ethics in favor of
professional integrity: I let professional integrity guide me when it
doesn't prompt me to do something unethical.
On Sun, Mar 25, 2007 at 02:45:08AM +0900, Robert Hicks wrote:
On Mar 23, 1:54 am, Chad Perrin <per...@apotheon.com> wrote:
<snip>
> I still wouldn't go around passing out illegal copies of books, of
> course. There are other reasons to avoid such behaviors than the
> strictly ethical, such as professional integrity, et alii.
>Wow! So having professionl integrity trumps ethical questions? However
you want
to "name" the "act" it is wrong and shouldn't be condoned but
confronted.
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Amazon.com interview candidate: "When C++ is your
hammer, everything starts to look like your thumb."
The first edition of Programming Ruby is available free, extremely
good, very popular, and easy to find. The Sams book isn't free, is
obviously hard to find, and very probably sucks. Stealing Sams when
you can get Programming Ruby for free is like holding up a liquor
store when you already have a great job.
--
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
http://giles.tumblr.com/
I note your scare quotes. They're a bit of a silly thing to put in
because the United States and other jurisdictions *have* defined
intellectual property. We can disagree with the implementations as
they stand, and I think that most modern computer scientists disagree
with the current implementations. HOWEVER, I think that "theft" is
still an appropriate word as relates to illicit e-books. You are
depriving an author of a sale to which they would otherwise be
entitled and are therefore denying them income to which they are
entitled.
Like it or not, we *must* have some legal regime for protecting the
intellectual work and output of people whose skills are best suited
that direction. That's why there's three different regimes
(expressions : copyright, inventions : patents, and brands :
trademarks) although all three regimes have been badly stretched
beyond what is reasonable and rational into things which provide
effectively perpetual monopolies without sufficient benefit to society
in return. It's the lack of benefit to society which is the problem
here with the current definitions, not the existence of the regimes
for protecting the intellectual work and output.
-austin
On 3/23/07, Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 03:36:35AM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> Nah. It's a bikeshed to the nuclear power plant of intellectual
> property discussions in general.
Speaking solely for myself here . . .Since I have an (admittedly non-mainstream) interpretation of the ethics
of "intellectual property" (note scare-quotes) that is decidedly not on
the side of counting it as "theft", I find that simply distinguishing
between theft and copyright infringement is the best compromise I can
generally come up with between ignoring the subject because it's
off-topic and refusing to let a bit of FUD go unchallenged. I don't
like to let such FUD go unchallenged, of course, because unchallenged it
becomes a meme, and propagates. Not my idea of fun.
--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
* austin@halostatue.ca * You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. // halo • statue
* austin@zieglers.ca
The original book mentioned, along with quite a few other books are
available on line via Safari Books Online http://safari.informit.com/0672322528
There are also several, shorter-than-book-length PDFs available
including:
and the second edition of Hal Fulton's book is available as a PDF:
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=91-9780768666304-0
In full disclosure, I both program a bit in Ruby, and am employed by
the company that publishes the above mentioned titles. But hey, I
read them. And I managed not to stand on my copyright soap box and
mention what happens to authors when...
Cheers,
John Wait
On Mar 23, 2:00 am, Chad Perrin <per...@apotheon.com> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 03:36:35AM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 3/22/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackr...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >Kyle Schmitt wrote:
> >> OK guys, stop jumping down my throat for using the common term for
> >> something.> >> Legally is it theft? Maybe not, but commonly it is referred to as such.
> >> He did ask for something illicit, knowing full well it was illegal.
> >> Why was the use of one word in a response diverting all focus from the
> >> original intent of the post?
> >Because programmers thrive on exact language, and exact meanings of
> >terms, maybe? ESR has written some interesting stuff about that.> Nah. It's a bikeshed to the nuclear power plant of intellectual
> property discussions in general.Speaking solely for myself here . . .
Since I have an (admittedly non-mainstream) interpretation of the ethics
of "intellectual property" (note scare-quotes) that is decidedly not on
the side of counting it as "theft", I find that simply distinguishing
between theft and copyright infringement is the best compromise I can
generally come up with between ignoring the subject because it's
off-topic and refusing to let a bit of FUD go unchallenged. I don't
like to let such FUD go unchallenged, of course, because unchallenged it
becomes a meme, and propagates. Not my idea of fun.--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [http://ccd.apotheon.org]
"Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to
build programs out of the wrong concepts." - Paul Graham- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -
Actually, I intended to allude to that event in my previous comments,
and my understanding of that event was that it was precipitated by
cracking Adobe's DRM scheme, not by infringement of copyright. So,
though it appears you're right about copyright being directly punishable
as a criminal act, I don't think that was an example of that. Please
let me know if you have information to the contrary, as (being on
vacation and typing this from a hotel room) I really don't have time to
do my own Google research right now.
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 08:16:01PM +0900, John Joyce wrote:
Yep, this was one of the scarier points. Making DRM illegal to
circumvent, stepping on the Fair Use doctrine, but not doing it
clearly. This was used to jail a Russian who allegedly broke Adobe's
eBook DRM scheme.
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Leon Festinger: "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell
him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he
questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."
FWIW, our PDFs do not have DRM enabled. All they have is your name stamped onto the bottom of each page.
Cheers
Dave
On Mar 23, 2007, at 6:55 PM, Tim X wrote:
To try and get things back on topic for the group - one of the things that made
me try out ruby was the availability of accessible material, such as the
pragmatic programmers ruby book etc. I'd be quite willing to pay for electronic
books like this one as long as I can then use it how I want - often, this means
converting it into text or html so that I can access it from my preferred
platform, Linux. The other good thing about getting into ruby is that there is
a wealth of material out there from users, such as blogs, guides and tutorials
that members of the ruby community have made available to anyone who wants
them.
While I've only been peripherally following this thread, and so may have
missed something along the way, the main point of those saying "is it
theft?" has been to emphasise the practical and moral difference between
depriving someone of a physical item which they then no longer have
access to, and obtaining without consent something for free which would
otherwise have to be paid for, *without* denying the original owner
access to it. Nobody (that I've seen, other than possibly the thread's
originator) is saying that either is right, or trying to rationalise
either. Conflating the two (as the big media owners like to do) is
overly simplistic and highly emotive for those who understand the
difference, because they understand what can be lost when that viewpoint
becomes entrenched.
Speaking solely for myself here, you're on the money (so to speak).
While I have some issues with the ethicality of copyright law, I would
still love to pay for a copy of one of the excellent books from the Prag
Progs (and, in fact, have already done so in the case of three or four
books bearing that imprimatur, and will surely continue to do in the
future). Such payment need not take the form of filthy lucre, but if
that's the preference of an author such as Dave Thomas, I'm happy to
reward his work in that manner -- the parenthetically alluded books I've
acquired have been worth a fair bit more to me than the money I've paid
for them, which makes them all an excellent deal for me.
That in no way changes how I feel about copyright law, or the simple
fact that copyright infringement is not theft, which seems to be the
point at which you were stabbing. So yes, as I said, you're on the
money at least as far as I'm concerned.
My own personal feelings on the matter are that the situation would be
much simpler if copyright was not transferable, but that really *is* a
conversation for another day...
I agree, and I once held the opinion that this was probably the best way
to fix an increasingly broken body of copyright law in the US. I don't
think the idea is any less an improvement over the current system, now,
than I did when it first occurred to me -- but I'm now of the opinion
that other (less popular) solutions are even better.
On Sat, Mar 24, 2007 at 08:17:20PM +0900, Alex Young wrote:
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Ben Franklin: "As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of
others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any
Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."
Actually, reviews of the Sams book that I've seen have been uniformly
enthusisatic.
martin
On 3/23/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
The first edition of Programming Ruby is available free, extremely
good, very popular, and easy to find. The Sams book isn't free, is
obviously hard to find, and very probably sucks. Stealing Sams when
you can get Programming Ruby for free is like holding up a liquor
store when you already have a great job.
I note your scare quotes. They're a bit of a silly thing to put in
because the United States and other jurisdictions *have* defined
intellectual property.
They have defined copyright, trademarks, patents, and some places a
variant kind of design protection. "Intellectual property" is a
mismash made over these very different granted limited monopolies.
We can disagree with the implementations as
they stand, and I think that most modern computer scientists disagree
with the current implementations. HOWEVER, I think that "theft" is
still an appropriate word as relates to illicit e-books. You are
depriving an author of a sale to which they would otherwise be
entitled and are therefore denying them income to which they are
entitled.
HOWEVER; I still think "theft" is an appropriate word as relates to
nonsense postings. You are depriving a reader of his time and mental
resources which they would otherwise e entitled and are therefore
denying them the opportunity to make income which they would otherwise
have.
No, didn't think we felt that shoe fit, either.
The point is that the copying does NOT deprive the author of anything.
In fact, copying MAY lead to higher direct income.
There are six cases here:
(1) Do not download and do not buy
(2) Do not download and do buy
(3) Download and buy, would buy without download
(4) Download and buy, would not buy without download
(5) Download and do not buy, would buy without downloaded
(6) Download and do not buy, would not buy without download
Classifying all cases from (3) to (6) as "theft" tend to result in
muddled thinking, including the assumption that there's always lost
revenue. This is not true. Loss of revenue hinges on (5) being
greater than (4). The rest of the cases is a red herring; they make
no difference to revenue, and just create more value in society by
making the work available to more people (or available in a new form.)
Both the statistical and the anecdotal evidence I have seen indicate
that (4) is in fact larger than (5) for aggregate copying/purchasing,
with the statistics covering music, and the anecdotal evidence
covering music, movies, and self development books.
Like it or not, we *must* have some legal regime for protecting the
intellectual work and output of people whose skills are best suited
that direction.
Like it or not, we *must* have guilds to protect against unlicensed
production of beads.
Like it or not, we *must* have protection for the buggy whip manufacturers.
Like it or not, we *must* have slaves working the cotton fields.
There's no must in either of that. It is a choice of laws, a choice
where society pays with a set of restrictions covering the activities
for some (or many people) to further other activities, and where
change in technology change the payoffs for various groups. We may
choose to keep protection, or we may choose not to, and this will give
different payoffs for different groups in society, leading to
different activity. We are heavily invested in the present form, so
changes will be expensive. It is difficult to say whether a different
set of restrictions would be better for society as a whole or not.
However, there is no "*must*" about it. We managed to live well
without these restrictions, and I have not seen anybody that have
shown in any convincing way that we wouldn't be doing reasonably well
without them today. If you've got simulation results or research
results that show otherwise, I'd be very interested in seeing them.
'cause I don't know of any proper research (simulations or similar)
that says much at all here, just a bunch of people taking it for
granted that we "have to have".
Eivind.
On 3/23/07, Austin Ziegler <halostatue@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Nah. It's a bikeshed to the nuclear power plant of intellectual
>> property discussions in general.
>Speaking solely for myself here . . .
>
>Since I have an (admittedly non-mainstream) interpretation of the ethics
>of "intellectual property" (note scare-quotes) that is decidedly not on
>the side of counting it as "theft", I find that simply distinguishing
>between theft and copyright infringement is the best compromise I can
>generally come up with between ignoring the subject because it's
>off-topic and refusing to let a bit of FUD go unchallenged. I don't
>like to let such FUD go unchallenged, of course, because unchallenged it
>becomes a meme, and propagates. Not my idea of fun.I note your scare quotes. They're a bit of a silly thing to put in
because the United States and other jurisdictions *have* defined
intellectual property. We can disagree with the implementations as
they stand, and I think that most modern computer scientists disagree
with the current implementations. HOWEVER, I think that "theft" is
still an appropriate word as relates to illicit e-books. You are
depriving an author of a sale to which they would otherwise be
entitled and are therefore denying them income to which they are
entitled.
The term "intellectual property" is more marketing than legalistic
terminology. It is used to encompass patent, copyright, and trademark
laws, which actually relate to three very distinct bodies of law. The
term is misleading, arbitrary in its scope, and not helpful in
presenting a realistic view of what these laws entail. Thus, scare
quotes.
It's amusing to me that you're willing to stipulate, or have even
confirmed for yourself (I don't know if you have), that the US legal
system at least does not in any way connect copyright infringement with
theft -- and yet, you continue to assume that "reasonable" means "will
consider copyright infringement to be theft". It's not. It's not
legally theft, it's not theoretically theft -- it's just popularly
misunderstood by certain lay person demographics to be theft, or
theft-like.
It's *not* an appropriate term, because it's inaccurate, and ignores an
important element of theft (directly depriving the victim of the
rightful possession of a measurable thing subject to natural scarcity).
The author is not "entitled" to a sale: if you don't want to buy it,
you don't have to. I'm not depriving him of a sale if I receive a copy
for free: doing so in no way prevents me from purchasing, and the sale
is not something he possessed anyway. All I am doing is, arguably,
reducing the likelihood of generating some small portion of revenue in
some statistically measured fashion, maybe, in accordance with his
chosen business model.
. . . or maybe increasing it.
On the other hand, his business model is predicated upon the assumption
that such behavior running counter to his business model will be
prevented by men with guns.
Like it or not, we *must* have some legal regime for protecting the
intellectual work and output of people whose skills are best suited
that direction. That's why there's three different regimes
(expressions : copyright, inventions : patents, and brands :
trademarks) although all three regimes have been badly stretched
beyond what is reasonable and rational into things which provide
effectively perpetual monopolies without sufficient benefit to society
in return. It's the lack of benefit to society which is the problem
here with the current definitions, not the existence of the regimes
for protecting the intellectual work and output.
I reject your thesis here, because you fail to support it substantively.
You make a claim about benefit to society and what one must or must not
do, and provide no backing for it in evidence or logical necessity.
On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 09:17:13PM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
On 3/23/07, Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote:
>On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 03:36:35AM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"It's just incredible that a trillion-synapse computer could actually
spend Saturday afternoon watching a football game." - Marvin Minsky
Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> writes:
On Mar 23, 2007, at 6:55 PM, Tim X wrote:
To try and get things back on topic for the group - one of the
things that made
me try out ruby was the availability of accessible material, such
as the
pragmatic programmers ruby book etc. I'd be quite willing to pay
for electronic
books like this one as long as I can then use it how I want -
often, this means
converting it into text or html so that I can access it from my
preferred
platform, Linux. The other good thing about getting into ruby is
that there is
a wealth of material out there from users, such as blogs, guides
and tutorials
that members of the ruby community have made available to anyone
who wants
them.FWIW, our PDFs do not have DRM enabled. All they have is your name
stamped onto the bottom of each page.Cheers
Dave
Thanks Dave - I was actually going to post to the site and ask this question.
You saved me the effort. Appreciated.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Excellent! I haven't yet ordered a PragProg PDF (despite owning several
hardcopy PragProg books), but as long as this policy of avoiding DRM
remains effective I'll most likely end up buying a few in time.
For what it's worth, I think the loyalty, respect, and good will of the
Ruby community in particular and even programmers in general will ensure
that you'll continue to profit from your generosity and quality work for
some time to come, without need of any attempts to use technical
enforcement of copyright. I, for one, am more inclined to pay money for
these books the more generous and trusting you are.
I'm just a drop in the bucket, though. I make no claims at this time
about the attitudes of others toward your largesse.
On Sat, Mar 24, 2007 at 11:05:19PM +0900, Dave Thomas wrote:
On Mar 23, 2007, at 6:55 PM, Tim X wrote:
>To try and get things back on topic for the group - one of the
>things that made
>me try out ruby was the availability of accessible material, such
>as the
>pragmatic programmers ruby book etc. I'd be quite willing to pay
>for electronic
>books like this one as long as I can then use it how I want -
>often, this means
>converting it into text or html so that I can access it from my
>preferred
>platform, Linux. The other good thing about getting into ruby is
>that there is
>a wealth of material out there from users, such as blogs, guides
>and tutorials
>that members of the ruby community have made available to anyone
>who wants
>them.FWIW, our PDFs do not have DRM enabled. All they have is your name
stamped onto the bottom of each page.
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"A script is what you give the actors. A program
is what you give the audience." - Larry Wall
Back when it first came out I used the Sams book and found it to be a
great intro to Ruby. Even after moving on to The Ruby Way, Programming
Ruby, and others I still look back on the Sams book as an effective
intro. A lot of the other languages that Sams books cover fall into
that realm too. Without exhaustive technical details the Sams Teach
Yourself Ruby book splits up the basic syntax and concepts into easy
to digest portions.
On Mar 22, 3:37 pm, "Martin DeMello" <martindeme...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 3/23/07, Giles Bowkett <gil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The first edition of Programming Ruby is available free, extremely
> good, very popular, and easy to find. The Sams book isn't free, is
> obviously hard to find, and very probably sucks. Stealing Sams when
> you can get Programming Ruby for free is like holding up a liquor
> store when you already have a great job.Actually, reviews of the Sams book that I've seen have been uniformly
enthusisatic.martin
I believe you are conflating two separate arguments to try to justify your point.
No the author is not entitled to a sale.
However, the author _is_ entitled, if they so wish, to ask for payment when someone takes possession of their book.
Copyright is the basis of the open source movement: it is the claim of copyright that allows the owner to insist on a particular license: "I own the copyright, and I'll grant you a license under the following terms."
Respect for copyright is an essential part of what we all do.
Similarly, the copyright owner of a book has the right to set the terms under which you use that work.
So, the correct phrasing of your initial sentence would be "I can't be forced to buy something." But, if the author has made it a condition that you _do_ buy it before using it, then you really should buy it before using it.
Earlier, you said you were in favor of free markets. Most economists believe that property rights is one of the key underpinnings of such a system: if you have no property rights, you can't transfer that capital, and you can't use it as collateral when raising funds. de Soto has a great book on the subject, explaining why weak property rights cause great inefficiencies in developing economies.
Using copyrighted works and ignoring the terms of use is probably not theft. But that doesn't make it morally right.
Regards
Dave Thomas
On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:00 AM, Chad Perrin wrote:
The author is not "entitled" to a sale: if you don't want to buy it,
you don't have to. I'm not depriving him of a sale if I receive a copy
for free: doing so in no way prevents me from purchasing, and the sale
is not something he possessed anyway. All I am doing is, arguably,
reducing the likelihood of generating some small portion of revenue in
some statistically measured fashion, maybe, in accordance with his
chosen business model.
Hey, we BSDers also exist. Our "giving away as far as we are able"
variant works quite well. Public domain - which is what happens when
there is no copyright - also seems to work quite well.
Yes, there is a whole host of people that participate in open source
under a "I'll live in fear of being exploited"-mindset, and we would
lose those - at least until they see that things work well anyway.
Still, copyright is not needed for what we do day to day, and there
are many projects that get by well more or less without it (and would
do perfectly without it if there wasn't jurisdictions willing to go
overboard with implied warranties for public domain work.)
Eivind.
On 3/23/07, Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> wrote:
Copyright is the basis of the open source movement: it is the claim
of copyright that allows the owner to insist on a particular license:
"I own the copyright, and I'll grant you a license under the
following terms."
I doesn't seem to me that Chad's comments are
in contradiction to your points on property rights.
I think he was just pointing out that 'theft' is
a term that has a well defined ethical and legal
meaning with respect to personal property but has
no well-defined ethical or legal meaning with
respect to copyright, trademarks, or patents. It
is true that many people use the term 'theft'
with respect to these concepts but Chad's point is
that it is a usage pattern that obfuscates rather
than clarifies the discussion. At least that is
the sense I got from his postings.
So you can be a strong property rights proponent
and simultaneously insist that copyright infringement
is not 'theft'.
Gary Wright
On Mar 23, 2007, at 12:01 PM, Dave Thomas wrote:
Earlier, you said you were in favor of free markets. Most economists believe that property rights is one of the key underpinnings of such a system: if you have no property rights, you can't transfer that capital, and you can't use it as collateral when raising funds. de Soto has a great book on the subject, explaining why weak property rights cause great inefficiencies in developing economies.