The New York Times
January 13, 2003
Steal This Book? A Publisher Is Making It Easy
By STEVE LOHR
The 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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