Vijay Kumar Bagavath Singh said on Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 06:42:28AM +0500,:
What I would like to know is, "Is it not ethically wrong, if an online version of a book is not made available?"
I guess this part of your question is not the same as the remaining part of the quote from your message. Ethics of book publishing is not concern of this list.
OTOH, if you mean "....version of a book is not made available under a free license?", you are on topic. ;( ^^^^^^^^^^^^
The free software community by and large, is concerned with books when the books are manuals for computer programs.
(Especially when all books are typeset using computers, and all one has to do is upload the electronic version of the book to his website.)
You certainly have a point, but ...
Printing expenses with costs of paper for a decent book is about 15 to 50 times more than burinig a CD. When profits are calculated as percentages of price of the `end `product', your suggestion, if adopted, will result in 15 5o 50 times drop in profitability of publishing houses.
Eaturally, they are avoiding e-publishing, or lobbying for things like DMCA to protect their profit margins.