[Reader-list] NY Times: Steal This Book? A Publisher Is Making It Easy

[Harsh Kapoor]

The New York Times
January 13, 2003

Steal This Book? A Publisher Is Making It Easy
By STEVE LOHR

he counterculture rules of the open-source software community are 
edging into mainstream book publishing, thanks to Bruce Perens.

Prentice Hall is publishing a line of computer books, the "Bruce 
Perens' Open Source Series." The first titles have already arrived 
for sale in bookstores like Barnes & Noble, and the electronic 
versions are expected to be available online soon afterward - and to 
be free.

All the books - a total of six are planned for this year - will be 
published not under a traditional copyright but under the Open 
Publication License, which was created in 1999 by David Wiley, an 
assistant professor at Utah State University. The license allows 
people to copy, modify and redistribute works. It is modeled after 
the General Public License for software, which sets the rules for 
information-sharing and reuse of code for the GNU Linux operating 
system (www.opencontent.org).
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"If you want to take one these books, put it on a photocopy machine 
and make copies, that's cool," said Mr. Perens, a leading open-source 
advocate.

Such practices make most publishers cringe and call their lawyers. 
But Prentice Hall, acknowledging the risk of lost sales, says the 
experiment is a worthwhile attempt to earn good will and gain readers 
among the growing ranks of programmers who work with open-source 
software like Linux and the Apache Web server. The front-runner among 
publishers of books for open-source programmers is O'Reilly & 
Associates, which publishes most of its books under traditional 
copyright.

In open-source projects, groups of programmers voluntarily develop, 
debug and modify the code. The software is free. But Linux companies 
like Red Hat and SuSE Linux charge their customers, who buy the 
software in boxes that include the code on CD-ROM's along with 
explanatory manuals.

Similarly, Prentice Hall, a unit of Pearson, is charging for the 
books, printed on paper with CD's attached. The first two titles, 
"The Linux Development Platform" and "Embedded Software Development 
with eCos," are priced at $49.99 each. (ECos is an open-source 
operating system developed for wireless devices like cellphones and 
remote controls.)

The free electronic versions of the books will be available in a 
couple of months - a delay intended to ensure that another publisher 
does not just make copies and beat Prentice Hall to stores at, say, 
half the price.

For Mr. Perens, the book series is a way to encourage the spread of 
open-source software by supplying better written instruction for 
programmers - who generally do not get their kicks from documenting 
their labors. "We've been saying we've got great software, but we 
don't actually have very good documentation," he said.

The electronic versions of the books, Mr. Perens added, can be 
frequently updated, and the authors can edit readers' contributions. 
He considers the series - in which his role is mainly selecting books 
and setting policy - to be a step toward broadening the application 
of open-source principles. "We are expanding the scope of 
collaborative works beyond software," Mr. Perens said.

In the past, individual books have been published under the Open 
Publication License at the insistence of individual authors like Mr. 
Perens. But Mark L. Taub, an editor in Prentice Hall's professional 
and technical book division, termed the Perens series a "strategic 
commitment" to a continuing line of books with the open license.

There is nothing to prevent programmers from waiting a couple of 
months to download copies of the books free rather than buying them. 
But Mr. Perens, a member of the digital avant-garde, predicts that 
serious programmers will buy the books for $50 each. Why? "People 
like paper," he said.

Even though photocopying the entire book or making a printout of the 
electronic version would violate no copyright law, Prentice Hall is 
betting that most people will not bother, preferring to pay for the 
convenience of the book itself.

Anthony J. Massa, a programmer and author of "Embedded Software 
Development with eCos," agrees. "I personally like having the printed 
version of a bound book in front of me," he said.


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