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Re: Your book: "The future of ideas".



On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Lawrence Lessig wrote:

> Thanks for the note. These are restrictions which the publisher imposes, not
> I. I have been arguing with them persistently to permit free distribution
> online, but so far I have failed.
> 
> Unfortunately, this is not "strange behavior". There is no publisher of work
> in my field that permits free online access. But again, I am doing what I
> can to request it. 

Oh, I see. Sorry for my provoking and possibly insulting wording. I seem 
to have misjudged your intentions.

But why must you use a publisher from your field? Have you tried O'Reilly? 
They published the book "Free as in freedom" (faifzilla.org), and the 
author of that book seems to be allowed to have a free online version.

Also, couldn't you ask FSF to publish your book in paper form? RMS's book 
is published by FSF's inhouse book publisher. I don't think neither 
O'Reilly nor FSF would find your book "off topic".

Is it to late to be allowed to change your mind now? Did you sign a 
contract giving your current publisher exclusive rights to publish your 
book(s)?

> GPL and FDL are poor licenses for literary works other than instructional
> manuals. That's why the FSF recommends a Creative Commons license. My work
> is licensed under a Founders Copyright, which means I wave any copyright
> after 14 years. 

They do? I didn't know that. Since I trust FSF (as much as a paranoid 
person as I can) I'll read about that license too. It's quite 
time consuming to form informed opinions about these issues. I'll get back 
to you in about six months or so ;).

> > Hello,
> > 
> > I want to read your book about freedom. But it seems as if you restrict me
> > from freely doing so? Why? I've read RMS's book online. He posts every
> > text that is in his book, online for everyone to read.
> > 
> > I will not read your book about freedom until you give me the freedom to
> > do so. Until you change this strange behaviour I will read everything else
> > you write with great suspicion.
> > 
> > Preferably you should license the online book with GPL or FDL.

-- 
Regards,
 
Tommy - http://www.geocities.com/todu5811/autosignature?1055
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