On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 16:21 -0600, Janet M. Swisher wrote: [Sorry about the lack of quoting for some reason on hitting reply the message didn't come across]
>I spent about half an hour searching the archives, and came up with following links. I think the idea of selling printed books seemed so natural and obvious that it never generated much discussion, much less controversy. Once it came up, everybody just assumed that it would eventually happen. <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgNo=4603> 19-Nov-04 Daniel mentions Lulu.com as POD vendor for open source books, not specifically OOoAuthors guides. Also in the same thread: <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgNo=4630> 20-Nov-04 Jacqueline McNally mentions that Lulu was used for the OOo Strategic Marketing Plan. <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgNo=4639> 19-Nov-04 Jonathan Blake suggests publishing the Users Guide on Lulu, and indicates he plans to publish _OOo in a Multi-Lingual Environment_ there also. <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgNo=4655> 20-Nov-04 Linda Worthington me-toos that idea. <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgId=1769710> 11-Feb-05 Jean mentions planning to have printed books (not specifically selling them). <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgNo=6248> 24-Feb-05 Jean mentions selling printed copies of the GSG and other guides. <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgId=1879126> <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgId=1879153> 12-Mar-05 Daniel mentions the ability to sell books, in a discussion of license options, as a reason for using the dual license we eventually settled on. <http://user-faq.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=authors&msgId=1981407> 02-May-05 Jean mentions planning to sell printed books. A commendable list of links! But, not one of them says that the books are about to be printed and the proceeds from the sale of the books is to be decided by the authors. My issue is not about printing and selling the books, my issue is to do with the lack of discussion about the process and where the money is going to go. It would appear that the OOo Community Council has similar concerns. If all the money went to a central OOo fund and the accounts were open and audited then I would feel a lot more comfortable. The current proposal of having the authors decide, to me, is a recipe for disaster. Putting aside the concerns of the OOo Community Council for a moment, let me pose a scenario: Person A has put a lot of effort into writing and maintaining a chapter. Person B is new and tentatively suggests a few changes. Person A rejects those changes so that Person B doesn't have a say on the proceeds of the sale of the chapter. Person B leaves feeling discouraged. As I think this scenario shows, to me the current proposal is not detrimental to the broader OOo community but also to the OOoAuthors community. > Certainly, nobody can guarantee anything when it comes to viruses. As I mentioned before, the server hosts at least two other open-source-community mailing lists of comparable size, currently with good performance. Virus and spam protections are in place. I can get further details on this if there is sufficient interest. Probably the fact that this server handles only a few mailing lists (whereas openoffice.org handles a great many) contributes to its better performance. I do not forsee the number of mailing lists on that server proliferating to the level of openoffice.org. Is the possible worst case scenario improvement in the mail list worth more than the confusion and ill will caused by further separation from OOo by OOoAuthors? To me it is not. -- Ian Laurenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hillview
