Re: Debian HOWTO
On Wed, 2 Sep 1998, Kathy Miles wrote:
> Let me elaborate a bit on what Chuck and I are attempting to do.
> We are working under a self-imposed narrow timeline, hoping to have the
> initial version of the book done in one month. We want to cover debian
> installation, setup and the basics of using a linux machine. The difficult
> challenge is that we are targeting people who are completely unfamilar
> with linux or unix: you know those folks who use that "other" operating
> system.
>
This is the same goal as the tutorial and the installation manual; two
major differences: you guys are writing much faster, and not using a free
license.
> As far as making it a debian package goes, Chuck is all for the
> idea and I like the idea but have a few concerns. We want to contribute to
> debian (and I am also interested in providing some "general public" linux
> articles for debian publicity, but we also want to publish and sell the
> book, having that basic need of living expenses. We already volunteer a
> major amount of time to a local freenet. I would like to make this book
> available for anyone to read but don't like the idea that someone could
> rip it off and sell it themselves. Any suggestions or solutions to this
> concern would be appreciated.
>
Well basically there is no solution - if that's what you want to do then
it's not really a problem to begin with. You can't put a free license on
the book and still ensure that no one uses your text as a basis for a new
text.
I think it's a great thing to have more books on Debian, and encourage you
to write it. However it's not a contribution to the Debian Project per se,
because the Debian manuals have to be modifiable as Debian is modified and
redistributable as Debian is redistributed. You could package the book for
the non-free section, however.
Best,
Havoc
Reply to: