Making paper copies of the ubuntu-doc guides available

[Matthew East]

Dear Jane (cc: to ubuntu-doc mailing list)

I'm writing to ask your opinion on an idea one of the members of the
Documentation Team had for making published copies of the guides that we
are shipping with Dapper. He pointed out that we could potentially sign
up with a publishing company which does "pay as you go" production of
books. What we had envisaged was to include in the guides a link to the
website of such a publisher (e.g. http://www.lulu.com) from which a
reader could obtain a printed copy if they wished.

It would be of no expense to us, because the user pays the costs of
production. If we waive any royalties, then so does lulu, so the only
price to the customer is production/shipping.

Corey raised an objection to the idea on the basis that he was concerned
that doing this might compete with the Official Ubuntu Book, sponsored
by Canonical. However, I think it's fair to say that the general view of
the team was that our guides would not be in competition with this book,
and that since our guides are published on the internet and in the
distribution, adding this option would simply be another way of making
it available.

To be clear about the idea, it would be that each of our guides (Ubuntu
Desktop Guide, Kubuntu Desktop Guide, Server Guide, Packaging Guide) and
all their various translations could be made available in this way. We
wouldn't get ISBNs for the books or anything, or market them in any way
except for making the link available in the guide itself, and
potentially on our website, where the guides are hosted. Finally, it
might be nice to ask the art team to produce a cover. We can provide the
pdf's without any extra work on our part, because we make pdf's already.

Do you have any thoughts about the idea? Obviously, it is something that
would need Canonical's approval to go ahead with it.

For reference, the guides (although not the translations, yet) are
available on http://help.ubuntu.com/6.06

Wishing you a Happy Easter.

Thanks, Matt
-- 
mdke at ubuntu.com
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF
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