Burton and others,
It is with pleasure that I have read the comments posted in this thread. It is a rare privilege to have such high quality input. As such, I would like to thank all those who have taken the time to express their opinion and share it with the rest of the community. Let me repeat it once again loud and clear. Log4j will continue to ship with documentation including examples, detailed javadocs and a manual. This documentation is and will continue to be licensed under the Apache Software License as the rest of the log4j software. There is no intention to force anyone to buy documentation. Log4j extensions such as new appenders or layouts are considered a separate body of work. They may be distributed under a different license, including for-a-fee commercial licenses. Book-quality documentation is very time consuming to write and by all means constitutes a separate body of work. There is no reason, legal, moral or otherwise, to discourage anyone from writing a book or book-quality documentation on log4j. Having more good quality documentation will increase the appeal of log4j and that can't be bad for the project. At the same time, the availability of commercial documentation on log4j must not prevent contributors from improving the quality of existing open-source documentation currently shipped with log4j. As long as this principle of separation of body of work is respected, I cannot see a danger to the health and continued success of the log4j project. I hope this clarifies my position on the issue. Regards, Ceki At 14:35 11.01.2002 -0500, Leathers, Burton wrote: >It is good to hear thoughtful discussion on this matter. > >I can well appreciate the dilemma Ceki faces. Right now the work he does on >log4j is long on glory and short on remuneration. Glory is a very low >calorie diet. > >On the other hand, I agree that gutting the documentation which is >distributed with log4j would detract greatly from its appeal/value/uptake >and so forth. In particular, limiting the distributed documentation to just >the Javadocs would be a disaster because critical information such as the >content of configuration files and the conceptual approach would be lost. > >I have mixed feelings about the notion of a ordinary book. Books are >disprortionately costly -- in the sense that a small proportion of the >retail cost goes to the author. Moreover, in our world, they have a very >short half life. > >Let me suggest something which I would find comfortable. > * Reasonable ->reference<- documentation is part of log4j > * Ceki writes a comprehensive expository document which explains the >whys and wherefors of log4j, how best to use it and so forth > * Ceki makes his book available online in a PDF (or like format) > * Honourable people pay Ceki online via credit card > >The advantages of this are: > * all the money goes to the author > * the cost is probably less than for a bound book > * it is easier to keep the book up to date > >True, people can print many copies of the PDF and pass around copies of it. >People also photocopy all or portions of bound books. > >Comments? > >Burton -- Ceki Gülcü - http://qos.ch -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
