Book review / advise

[Stephen Hansen]

On 6/22/10 11:01 AM, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 6/22/2010 11:49 AM, Stephen Hansen wrote:
>> Uhh, that looks like a scam. Someone scraped the Python docs and bundled
>> it up as a "book" to sell to naive people for outrageous prices;
> 
> Various people have asked on this list for printed versions of the docs.
> PSF has never provided them. As I once read the license, it allows
> anyone to do so, and charge whatever price. I considered doing this once
> myself, but they seem to have beaten me to it ...

Its not a question of if it is illegal, or even a copyright violation.
You can take Python itself and bundle it and sell it if you want.
"Permitted" doesn't mean its not still a scam-- that unsuspecting people
who don't quite know the difference aren't going to see this and buy it
instead of one of the real books out there (with real editing and
administrative costs) that'd be much better use of it.

Because this book is by Guido himself.

> Except that there is one possible scam aspect -- there is no version
> listed on the cover. A reviewer of the ref manual said his was for
> 3.0.1. Selling that now as the Python 3 Ref Manual (there is no such
> thing) *is* a scam. There is no indication that it has been undated. If
> I were to do this, I would be honest in this respect and publish the
> "Python 3.1.2 Refence Manual", etc. Much more work to redo, better
> service. I would publish through print-on-demand so there is no inventory.

You give them far more credit then I think they deserve; they're going
and taking:

http://docs.python.org/py3k/tutorial/index.html

And bundling that little section up together as a "book" and charging
over $22 for those hundred odd pages. The whole manual would end up
costing you $60+ -- with another $50 or so for the 'extending' then
'embedding' and 'distribution' "book" they are making.

Its like those services which go and scrape up a few vaguely-related
Wikipedia articles and package them as a "book".

> Given editorial and administrative costs, printing cost, bookseller
> markup, and "For each copy sold $1 will be donated to the Python
> Software Foundation by the publisher", the price is not unreasonable.
> The fixed costs have to be amortized over an unknown and probably not
> large sales base.  The standard author royalty might be $2, so they are
> not saving that much on that score.

We have dramatically different definitions of "reasonable" price, then.

>> and put Guido's name on it to give it legitimacy.
> 
> Guido and Fred Drake *were* the original author and editor and were once
> listed as such. I am not sure who or what else the publishers should
> list. Python Development Community ? (which includes me for snippets of
> the docs). The license requires that they *not* put themselves as the
> authors.

Yes, he was the original author; yes, the other he was the original editor.

"By Guido van Rossum" on a book cover, with "Fred L. Drake (Editor)" on
same cover, conveys something though. For one thing, people will assume
Guido had a direct hand in this: did he? And that Fred was involved in
editing (and since at least one person on one of the Amazon sales
remarked of how horribly the web->book transition was done, makes him
look bad).

There are ways you can credit the authors of the real documentation and
not flagrantly cash in on their reputation to sell (for outrageous prices).

> You would have to ask them. Perhaps the PSF should publish each edition
> of the manuals. Assembly of the pdfs for say, Lulu (a print-on-demand
> publisher) could probably be pretty well automated with Python and
> Sphinx. There is already a .pdf version produced, but it would need some
> tweaking. And this would need someone's time.

I'm not saying such a thing couldn't be done; or that it shouldn't be
done; or that someone producing the web docs->book doesn't even have a
right to make a profit off of it. I'm not even saying what this company
did isn't entirely permitted -- but permitted doesn't mean there's not
some underhanded stuff going on at the same time and that its all
above-the-board and ethical.

-- 

   Stephen Hansen
   ... Also: Ixokai
   ... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
   ... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/

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