PickAxe 2 licensing

ruby-talk
21

I bought it practically the day it came out, and only discovered that
it was going to be released for free a while later. I thought it was
worth it.

Carl

22

We haven't decided yet, but it's likely that if we offer a PDF, it's be deeply discounted for folks who also buy the book. With the existing (considerably smaller) books, the PDF is $20, the paper $29.95, but the two together are $37.50. The prices won't be the same for the PickAxe, but the concept might be.

Cheers

Dave

···

On Jul 9, 2004, at 16:32, Sean Russell wrote:

However, I *love* having the reference available online. Would you
consider providing an electronic version for people who buy the book,
or would that be courting piracy?

23

Sam Stephenson wrote:
> Do you plan to offer an electronic version for sale? The
> current HTML version is quite convenient for searching,
> and I can carry it with me on my laptop.

Dave Thomas wrote:

We might well offer a PDF version, but that hasn't been
confirmed yet.

I don't use paper books at all any more and have little interest in a paper
edition. But I would gladly buy an electronic edition, either PDF or HTML.

-Mike

24

Carl Youngblood wrote:

I bought it practically the day it came out, and only discovered that
it was going to be released for free a while later. I thought it was
worth it.

Definitely worth it. And I expect great things of the second one.

FWIW, the people at Sams were initially hesitant about _The Ruby Way_
because of the relatively low sales of the pickaxe.

In an unabashedly self-serving way, I posited (true or not) that the
open-sourcing of the book might account largely for its poor sales.
They seemed to buy this idea.

So in an indirect sense, the open-sourcing of the pickaxe was
instrumental in getting TRW to press. Hmm, nobody much calls it
the Coral Book but me. That's coral on the front, so I'm told. :slight_smile:

When/if there is a 2nd edition TRW (which has been discussed but not
made firm), I've been thinking of the possibility of open-sourcing
the *first* edition. If the 2nd ed is significantly different (as it
should be), this might be practical.

Hal

25

yes, i would love this. i purchased your pragprog book proper, but
not the pickaxe because i would like fewer physical possessions in my
life, not more. ideally my entire library would be PDFs on my laptop,
with backups on my server.

would you consider a cumulative pricepoint where if you achieve a
specific sales/revenue threshold, the PDF is made freely available?
have the community support your supporting the community, rather than
risking that burden upfront.

-z

···

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 06:43:23 +0900, Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> wrote:

On Jul 9, 2004, at 16:32, Sean Russell wrote:

> However, I *love* having the reference available online. Would you
> consider providing an electronic version for people who buy the book,
> or would that be courting piracy?

We haven't decided yet, but it's likely that if we offer a PDF, it's be
deeply discounted for folks who also buy the book. With the existing
(considerably smaller) books, the PDF is $20, the paper $29.95, but the
two together are $37.50. The prices won't be the same for the PickAxe,
but the concept might be.

Cheers

Dave

26

Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> wrote in message news:<FDB827D0-D1F0-11D8-A508-000A95676A62@pragprog.com>...

We haven't decided yet, but it's likely that if we offer a PDF, it's be
deeply discounted for folks who also buy the book. With the existing
(considerably smaller) books, the PDF is $20, the paper $29.95, but the
two together are $37.50. The prices won't be the same for the PickAxe,
but the concept might be.

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

--- SER

27

Dave Thomas wrote:

We haven't decided yet, but it's likely that if we offer a PDF, it's be deeply discounted for folks who also buy the book. With the existing (considerably smaller) books, the PDF is $20, the paper $29.95, but the two together are $37.50. The prices won't be the same for the PickAxe, but the concept might be.

Would you consider including a PDF or HTML version with the book? I know, there's a major problem with tracking HTML and making sure it doesn't get passed around, but dead trees just aren't greppable.

I personally much prefer HTML to PDF, because PDFs are almost always done expecting that they'll be printed to 8 1/2" by 11" paper, and so they don't scale well to my 4:3 screen. HTML, on the other hand, will adjust itself to whatever shape my browser is in. To me, PDF is a barely useful format. It has all the inflexibility of layout of a book, with all the difficulty of reading of a web page. Sometimes you want something laid out in a very specific way, but most of the time, you just want the data.

Maybe, as others suggested, you can include a coupon with the book, and once your sales pass a certain point, that coupon can be redeemed for an electronic version of the book. Having read (and helped to edit) a few chapters of the book already, I know it will be worth buying. On the other hand, I think the last time I used a paper book as a reference while programming was when O'Reilly came out with their first "Programming Java" book.

I hope your book succeeds, but if I could choose the format my $37.50 bought, it would be HTML.

Ben

28

Dave Thomas wrote:
> We might well offer a PDF version, but that hasn't been
> confirmed yet.

I don't use paper books at all any more and have little interest in a paper
edition. But I would gladly buy an electronic edition, either PDF or HTML.

Ditto, tritto. I'd pay for it, for sure, and preferably in HTML -- It
takes one less app to read, and searching is better. Plus I can build my
own indexes easily that way.

Ari

29

Michael Geary wrote:

I don't use paper books at all any more and have little interest
in a paper edition. But I would gladly buy an electronic edition,
either PDF or HTML.

I forgot to mention... If it's on http://safari.oreilly.com that would work
for me too. That's where I'm reading The Pragmatic Programmer.

Thanks,

-Mike

30

Maybe one should add a "donate" via paypal or similar service to the free online books.

Our publisher (dpunkt.verlag) also once mentionned that the online version of
our German ruby book is probably reducing the book-sales, which might be true looking
at our webserver's log-files. A popular game seems to use a spide to create a pdf out
of the html-pages. Fine with me :-).

Ciao,
    -Armin.

31

Hal Fulton wrote:

FWIW, the people at Sams were initially hesitant about _The Ruby Way_
because of the relatively low sales of the pickaxe.

In an unabashedly self-serving way, I posited (true or not) that the
open-sourcing of the book might account largely for its poor sales.
They seemed to buy this idea.

When I was working on the ill-fated Beginning Ruby Programming, the project managers at Wrox Ltd were concerned about what they saw as poor sales for existing Ruby books, and we were discussing putting the book online while it was being written.

There seemed to be good arguments both for making the copy available for free (see Bruce Eckel, and various comments from Tim O'Rielly) and for not doing so. I'm inclined to think that books with short discursive sections and (relatively) much reference material are much easier (and more practical) to read online than books with long sections of prose.

And then Wrox went bankrupt and the book went into limbo.

I think people are inclined to buy the paper versions of Eckel's books because they do not lend themselves to prolonged on-screen reading. The Pickaxe, though, works very well as an HTML document, especially for the reference sections. I have a paper copy of Programming Ruby, but rarely open it; the CHM and online versions are far more useful.

So in an indirect sense, the open-sourcing of the pickaxe was
instrumental in getting TRW to press. Hmm, nobody much calls it
the Coral Book but me. That's coral on the front, so I'm told. :slight_smile:

When/if there is a 2nd edition TRW (which has been discussed but not
made firm), I've been thinking of the possibility of open-sourcing
the *first* edition. If the 2nd ed is significantly different (as it
should be), this might be practical.

If the main goal of "open sourcing" (a weird phrase for a book; don't all books come with source?) is to lure readers into buying something, then it may make sense to hold back something from the free version (e.g., it isn't the current edition, or doesn't have illustrations).

(Online books already lack the quality of resolution one gets from proper book printing.)

James

32

Hi All,

···

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004, zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com> wrote:

... i purchased your pragprog book proper, but
not the pickaxe ...

I thought "The Pickaxe Book" is a nickname for "Programming Ruby: The
Pragmatic Programmer's Guide", so dubbed because of the picture of a pickaxe
on the cover. Am I wrong? Are they really two distinct books?

Regards,
Richard

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.713 / Virus Database: 469 - Release Date: 7/8/2004

33

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

Cheers

Dave

···

On Jul 10, 2004, at 2:18, zuzu wrote:

would you consider a cumulative pricepoint where if you achieve a
specific sales/revenue threshold, the PDF is made freely available?
have the community support your supporting the community, rather than
risking that burden upfront.

34

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

···

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 04:22:28 +0900, Sean Russell <ser@germane-software.com> wrote:

Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> wrote in message news:<FDB827D0-D1F0-11D8-A508-000A95676A62@pragprog.com>...
> We haven't decided yet, but it's likely that if we offer a PDF, it's be
> deeply discounted for folks who also buy the book. With the existing
> (considerably smaller) books, the PDF is $20, the paper $29.95, but the
> two together are $37.50. The prices won't be the same for the PickAxe,
> but the concept might be.

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

--- SER

35

It'd be nice if someone kept the Ruby APIs documented in a
searchable/browsable way, akin to how PHP docs are maintained, but I
personally don't need the entire Pickaxe as PDF/HTML.

  Sean O'Dell

···

On Friday 09 July 2004 09:53, Aredridel wrote:

> Dave Thomas wrote:
> > We might well offer a PDF version, but that hasn't been
> > confirmed yet.
>
> I don't use paper books at all any more and have little interest in a
> paper edition. But I would gladly buy an electronic edition, either PDF
> or HTML.

Ditto, tritto. I'd pay for it, for sure, and preferably in HTML -- It
takes one less app to read, and searching is better. Plus I can build my
own indexes easily that way.

36

Richard Lionheart wrote:

Hi All,

... i purchased your pragprog book proper, but
not the pickaxe ...
   
I thought "The Pickaxe Book" is a nickname for "Programming Ruby: The
Pragmatic Programmer's Guide", so dubbed because of the picture of a pickaxe
on the cover. Am I wrong? Are they really two distinct books?

Regards,
Richard

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.713 / Virus Database: 469 - Release Date: 7/8/2004

Andrew Hunt and David Thomas also have a book called The Pragmatic Programmer. The book discusses programming pragmatically in a general sense and does not discuss Ruby. It is an excellent book that has made me a much better programmer. If you have the cash I really do recommend that you pick it up.

···

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004, zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com> wrote:

37

Richard Lionheart wrote:

Hi All,

... i purchased your pragprog book proper, but
not the pickaxe ...

I thought "The Pickaxe Book" is a nickname for "Programming Ruby: The
Pragmatic Programmer's Guide", so dubbed because of the picture of a pickaxe
on the cover. Am I wrong? Are they really two distinct books?

No, they're the same. He's referring to their first (non-Ruby)
book, _The Pragmatic Programmer_.

Hal

···

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004, zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com> wrote:

38

i'm proposing if this were understood from the beginning. essentially
the arrangement becomes "contribute $20 to the process of making the
PDF available to everyone and receive an advance copy now."

-z

···

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 02:21:01 +0900, Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> wrote:

On Jul 10, 2004, at 2:18, zuzu wrote:

> would you consider a cumulative pricepoint where if you achieve a
> specific sales/revenue threshold, the PDF is made freely available?
> have the community support your supporting the community, rather than
> risking that burden upfront.

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

Cheers

Dave

39

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

···

On Saturday 10 July 2004 10:21, Dave Thomas wrote:

On Jul 10, 2004, at 2:18, zuzu wrote:
> would you consider a cumulative pricepoint where if you achieve a
> specific sales/revenue threshold, the PDF is made freely available?
> have the community support your supporting the community, rather than
> risking that burden upfront.

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

40

zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com> wrote in message news:<a988e9f6040710130974c3ed67@mail.gmail.com>...

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