Is Kazaa distribution part of the answer? (was: Python and p2p)

[Chris Keyes]

Carlos Ribeiro wrote:
> Cameron,
> 
> Being from Brazil, I understand Pedro's plight. Now I have most of my books 
> shipped from Amazon, or from 'Submarino', a brazilian e-bookstore that does 
> have a good selection of titles; but it was not always like that.
> 
> When I was a student - from high school to college - it was not uncommon for 
> we to photocopy chapters, or even entire books, for one (or both) of two 
> reasons: (1) books were, and still are, *way too* expensive in third world 
> countries, and (2) at that time, sometimes you just couldn't find the book to 
> buy, even if you had the money. The 'net almost eliminated the second issue, 
> but there are lots of poor students that can't afford to buy books (specially 
> imported ones, as it's the case most of the time with computer programming).
> 
> [For you to understand how bad the situation is, it is not uncommon for the 
> teachers themselves to lend a book for photocopying; the ones who should be 
> educating to stop piracy are forced to encourage it.]
> 
> As for the libraries, there are a few good public libraries, but most of them 
> have problems keeping up-to-date with the latest books; and in some cases, 
> the number of copies available is very small, while in others, people simply 
> disappear with books.
> 
> All that said, it is pretty much as Pedro Alvarez stated - an unfortunate but  
> realistic fact of life. Now, following for Geoff's suggestion, why not put 
> copies of the 'free' Python books available on a P2P network? It would help 
> to create a bigger 'mindshare' for Python - people would find material using 
> the tool of their choice, and would be able to compare the quality of the 
> material, which is really excellent (as Python itself).
> 
> 
> Carlos Ribeiro
> cribeiro at mail.inet.com.br
> 

Yes in England there is often only one or two copies of a book for 
several hundred students so they are on 1 or 3 hour loan, not really 
helpful for learning something like python.

At least the value of our currency means we can get hold of US books at 
prices that don't frighten employed people. I've no idea how the cost of 
books imported from the US compares to the wages / cost of living in 
Brazil, I'm sure you can enlighten me.

Here a python book costs £20 to £50 with old versions sometimes 
available for about £10. The average shop worker / student in a part 
time job earns around £4 an hour. So python books are worth about 5 to 
12 hours wages. I suspect in Brazil those figues are harder.

On that note I should draw myself away from this before I get too bogged 
down in the legality of photocopying something you can't afford etc :-(