One issue is that people may not _know_ they are just buying something which is already freely available. If nothing else, something in the license about making exactly what it is people are buying clear is necessary.
I think it is a good thing if it were available in printed form; whatever is charged for it, it is probably going to be cheaper and nicer then trying to print it yourself. One option is to contract with a publisher for them to publish it and provide some form of royalties to the Apache Group. However, that may be legally troublesome right now since the Apache Group doesn't exist. I agree, not something that has to be decided right away, but certainly an issue to keep in mind. Hey, I'll be happy if we end up with something that is good enough that people want to publish it. <g> In making the comparison with Linux, I think you will find that a good bit of the Linux documentation is restricted from being published and there are agreements between the authors and various publishers for making published copies available. But that is just based on a vague recollection from years ago... may have no truth in it. On Thu, 7 Aug 1997, Brian Slesinsky wrote: > > I think commercial publishing would be okay as long as it's nonexclusive; > there should be multiple commercial distributors like with Linux. > Similarly, as someone who works for a commercial web site, I wouldn't be > adverse to mirror sites running ads as long as it's nonexclusive and > others can put up mirror sites for free. > > Perhaps this is naive, but my guess is that if there's true competition, > nobody's going to make a whole lot of money from publishing a book you can > get elsewhere for less. But does anyone know what happens with other > books in the public domain? > > In any case, we don't need to decide this right away - we could distribute > under a more restrictive license and ask people to write to us about > commercial distribution. > > _____________________________________________________________________ > Brian Slesinsky www.wired.com/staff/bslesins >
