CC meeting preliminary notes

[John Hornbeck]

On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 08:15 +0100, sparkes wrote:
> John Hornbeck wrote:
> >>The idea of a book is really nice, off-course it also takes a lot of
> >>time so it should be planned well. But it sure sounds nice especially
> >>if it could be build/tweaked within the wiki
> >>
> > 
> > I don't want to hurt feelings and I would love the help but the book is
> > something that will be written by one person mainly.  I have stepped up
> > to this task and welcome input but I don't want it having the writing
> > style of a hundred people.  I hope people don't take that wrong, but if
> > I am going to take the time to write it, I want it to be the best it can
> > be.
> 
> what happened to ubuntu?

> Books are often written by teams and edited by a small number of people. 
>   This is more common in technical arena than anywhere else.  I was 
> asked to write a couple of chapters on a forthcoming suse book (dispite 
> the fact I don't use suse) that would have just had me as a contributor 
> and not one of the two authors.

> I was asked to write an unoffical book already (before I joined the doc 
> team offically) and I am sure other people have/will have offers like 
> this on the table.
> 
> Working together on one book in an open style is more in keeping with 
> what we are doing than each to their own.
> 
> This brings me to another point the licencing of wiki text.  I believe 
> that documentation for a free software project should use the GNU FDL 
> and the CC back up this point.  Therefore I am suggesting how-to's and 
> the like require a licence compatable with the FDL for inclusion.  This 
> would allow us to repurpose the work and edit without any licence problems.
> 
> If my words are written using the FDL I would not let you reuse them in 
> a commercial setting :-(  this includes using derivatives of my work for 
> *your* book.  If it was *our* book (edited by whoever I don't care) it 
> could be FDL and the words could be used without change if required.
> > 
> > 
> >>Writing an Ubuntu magazine, what is the public opinion? The guys from
> >>gnome-journal have problems filling up issues, but it sure looks nice.
> >>If we add stuff to Ubuntu traffic then we lighten mako's burden and
> >>always have something to write.
> >>
> > 
> > I think the magazine is great, but don't know if I have time to really
> > work on it so I leave it to others to be done.  Can't wait to see what
> > you guys do with it.
> > 
> 
> So you have time to write a book for money and add free docs to the wiki 
> but not to write the odd short article for a free project?
> >
I think you took my whole statement wrong.  I would like people to help
and contribute but I don't think a setting where "everyone" can
contribute is the right setting.  I wish to have people contribute and
work with people, and give them credit, but at the same time I like to
set my standards high.  If you start with writing a book on a wiki, you
lose control right away.  Even with freesoftware as a whole, you can
modify and do with it what you want but the developer still has the
final say when it comes to releaseing the actual product under its said
name.  I am looking at a free license, I really like how "Free as In
Freedom", is done where it is all online but still a paper copy, I own
that book and have still read it online.

	I am not trying to cut the "Ubuntu" out of this, but I feel writing it
on the wiki is the wrong place.



John Hornbeck
http://hornbeck.freeshell.org/blogger