> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> There have been attempts to do this sort of thing before, most notably
Bruce
> Perens' "Linux for Hams" project.
I thought that was going to be a Linux distribution, not a book?
> What really worries me is that a decent book
> of 100-200 pages on using Linux for ham radio would tend to be too short,
and a
> proper treatment would take at least six months to write -- by which time
it
> would be largely out of date.
First, please understand that I don't make the final call on what will/will
not be published by ARRL. I do have some influence in the decision-making
process. That said... I'm not saying a larger book is out of question. I'm
only saying a small book is a no-brainer; the risk is small because the cost
is small.
Your "largely out of date" comment, along with the size of book you are
anticipating, makes me wonder just what you expect to be in the book? I
wasn't imagining something that would be the complete documentation to all
of the ham-related applications -- that's what man pages and other on-line
documentation files are for. I was envisioning something that would guide
the reader in finding out what kinds of things are available for hams under
Linux, some quick-start "how to" information for the kernel (AX25) stuff and
the more popular applications, and some pointers to how to stay current. Six
months seems like an awfully short time for something like that to be
"largely out of date."
The next step, it seems to me, is to put together an outline of the book.
Trying to determine a page count is pointless until you know what material
you're going to cover.
> The shorter the book, the more quickly it could
> be produced and the more frequently it could be updated. It should
certainly
> come with a CD-ROM. The speed at which Linux evolves is going to force
some
> new ways of thinking about publishing.
A CD-ROM is no problem. Heck, I'd be willing to publish the whole thing on
CD-ROM -- that's dirt cheap and page-count isn't a significant issue. But
it's my impression that what people on this list are talking about is a
paper book, not just a CD.
Jon
