Friends, I have long had this question in mind. Please help me out.
Lawrence Lessig is a well known supporter of the free software movement. After all, he has joined the Board of Directors of the FSF. In the spirit of information sharing, shouldn't his books "CODE" and "the future of ideas" be free(as in freedom)?
This happens with other people as well. For example Jessica Litman the author of the book "Digital Copyright", has not made the book free.
I understand that, they have not published electronic versions of their book. But they do have excerpts for one or two chapters. I am not sure what kind of license they use for the book. I don't think the license is mentioned on the website.(Please correct me if I am wrong.)
RMS, has always been very strict in this regard. All his essays, books, audio recordings and video clips - he has always made sure that they are made freely available.
What I would like to know is, "Is it not ethically wrong, if an online version of a book is not made available?"(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.)
Vijay
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.
Of Lessig's 3 major books, 1 *is* available under an open content license.
http://www.lessig.org/ http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
The license used for this is creative commons, attribution, noncommercial, and this is mentioned clearly.
It's not surpising that he chooses creative commons - he is chair of the board of directors, as well as the founder.
http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people
I don't think we should be too critical of people who don't open content *everything* they do. Lessig has done more for open content than almost anybody else on earth.
Imran
Vijay Kumar Bagavath Singh wrote:
Friends, I have long had this question in mind. Please help me out.
Lawrence Lessig is a well known supporter of the free software movement. After all, he has joined the Board of Directors of the FSF. In the spirit of information sharing, shouldn't his books "CODE" and "the future of ideas" be free(as in freedom)?
This happens with other people as well. For example Jessica Litman the author of the book "Digital Copyright", has not made the book free.
I understand that, they have not published electronic versions of their book. But they do have excerpts for one or two chapters. I am not sure what kind of license they use for the book. I don't think the license is mentioned on the website.(Please correct me if I am wrong.)
RMS, has always been very strict in this regard. All his essays, books, audio recordings and video clips - he has always made sure that they are made freely available.
What I would like to know is, "Is it not ethically wrong, if an online version of a book is not made available?"(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.)
Vijay
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Imran William Smith -
Mahesh T. Pai -
Vijay Kumar Bagavath Singh