Linux in a Nutshell (O'Reilly book)

[Joshua Zeidner]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Alan Dayley <alandd at consultpros.com> wrote:
> I don't understand the negativity around dead tree media.

  The criticisms are complex.  Primarily, chopping down rain forests
to explain to someone how to write Perl is considered wasteful and
excessive[1].  Its obvious to anyone who is serious about development
that a few google queries rivals what you can find in any printed
technical manual ( for $69.95 ).  The core issue though is what I
mention elsewhere in this thread, currently there is no dependable way
to enforce compensation for authors other than print.  Where there is
no compensation, there is low or no quality.  Amazon has an
interesting initiative, the Kindle, but history has shown that all DRM
schemes will eventually be hacked- so its just a matter of time before
people are reading 'bootlegged' copy on their Kindles.  Secondly this
raises the familiar issues of the excesses of copyright.  As we begin
to rely more and more on legal authority in the realm of ideas, we
start to encounter more and more exploitation (ie. people copyrighting
chord progressions or yoga postures).  We have yet to find a practical
system that works and promotes innovation and art, obviously progress
needs to be made in understanding what factors are at stake here and
how to effectively address them.

  -jmz

 [1] Americans use more than 50 million tons of paper each year,
consuming more than 850 million trees



>  It has many
> advantages, including ultimate portability and no dead batteries.  I
> currently have multiple O'Reilly books above my computer here, all of
> which I have actually used, some more than others.  My Linux Pocket
> Guide is an excellent reference.  There's just something about having
> three fingers between different sections of a book and flipping
> between them while learning!
>
> O'Reilly, as a company, has provided excellent support for
> Linux/FS/OSS with books and conferences and direct support for PLUG.
> Sure, it made good business sense for them to do it or they probably
> wouldn't but, that's OK because we both win.  O'Reilly is supporting
> new avenues of knowledge spreading with efforts like Ignite events
> (http://www.ignitephoenix.com)
>
> While I believe printed books will be come less and less important, I
> hope they don't go away completely.  And I have learned something from
> every O'Reilly book I own.  That they have a book named "favorite
> Linux book of all time" is another bonus to them.
>
> Alan
>
> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
>> I'm not sure why I am bothering with this but I do happen to own many
>> dead tree edition computer books including many O'Reilly books but truth
>> be told, they are decorating my office by residing on shelves instead of
>> my desk so I think your characterization is slightly too narrow.
>>
>> It's also hard to ignore that O'Reilly actually has contributed stuff to
>> PLUG and has solicited the list for reviewers which makes me think that
>> the commentaries are overly harsh.
>>
>> Lastly, it is obvious that both Lisa and Joshua don't seem to care that
>> Gerald expressed a personal pride connection with this particular book
>> and I would like to ask Gerald what his connection was to "Linux in a
>> Nutshell?"
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 18:39 -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>>> agreed.  O'reilly = lame.  The price of those books is hardly worth
>>> the information in them.  They're mainly used for decorating the desks
>>> of poser developers.
>>>
>>>   -jmz
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 6:34 PM, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com> wrote:
>>> > Snore!
>>> >
>>> > Bored with the under publishing of technical books, and over blown accolades
>>> > for the few available....
>>> >
>>> > O'Really now!
>>> > I own that book BTW (and the Unix in A Nutshell it was patterned afer was
>>> > well used too) but I find the actual sources of each distribution more
>>> > useful (man, cat /proc/cpuinfo, ls, find) than that book, which is far from
>>> > current or distro specific.
>>> >
>>> > big yawn with dreamy bleary eyes
>>> >
>>> > On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Gerald Thurman <nanofoo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Tim O'Reilly just tweeted this...
>>> >>
>>> >> Linux Journal Reader's Choice Awards: Linux in a Nutshell favorite Linux
>>> >> book of all time. I'm honored. http://bit.ly/hhTBH
>>> >>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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