OT: Linux in a Nutshell (O'Reilly book)

[A. W. Wright]

(Since we are top-posting)

In your opinion! I am more then happy to pay my $10 for 1/500th of a
tree planted and harvested and processed by private companies on their
own private property, or resources that would have been cut down and
gone unused otherwise. We don't cut down rainforests for paper
(rainforests are really only cut down for clearing land). <sarcasm>I
mean, /everyone/ knows trees are /not/ renewable resources.</sarcasm>
Companies have hundreds of thousands of acres of land just for trees, in
New England where I lived, the land would be leased for tapping maple
syrup among other things. What about the alternative? If people don't
buy books, what would they be doing instead that might possibly be more
harmful? I don't suppose anyone considered how many more times E-waste
uses, and how harmful it is? Or some other activity other then
reading/computing altogether?

I happen to own (one) O'Reilly book (Firefox Hacks) and found it very
useful. Fact is online references just can't replace printed
instructional materials. For instance the book Man, Economy, and State,
great publication available online at http://mises.org/rothbard/mes.asp
and PDF with a cc-by license. I purchaced the book anyways, because the
additional value I get from the printed version justifies the cost, for me.

While we are on the subject of copyright, http://mises.org/story/2632 .
Tagging OT. I often wonder which industries would be more or less
successful without IP laws, and how the economy has evolved around it
and been distorted by it. Perhaps the movie theater industry would exist
(because contract law would still protect movies) but DVDs, which are
the bulk of the profits, would be very different. Patents would no
longer be a concern, since especially nowadays the cost of not
innovating at all is still lower then the cost of innovating without a
patent and the associated monopoly (or would be offset by the increased
ability to use innovations you were previously not able to legally).
Trademarks would still exist in some sense, since you wouldn't be able
to claim it is a genuine X brand product (that would be fraud since you
are not getting the product you were promised).

Austin Wright.

Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>