[ZDP] A publisher for ZBook?

[Rik Hoekstra]

> Did anyone read what Laurie Petrycki of NR just wrote? The book would be 
> published under the OPL, which means that they have the right to publish it 
> commercially, but that we, as the authors can do with it what we deem 
> right, as long as it fits under the OPL! This includes publishing the book 
> online, or with any other publisher.
> 
> It also give the right to any other publisher to pick it up and publish it 
> themselves. Any significant changes should be marked, and it is considered 
> good form to inform the author(s), but they cannot restrict anyone else on 
> using it either.

as long as the copyright remains intact, I take it.

> 
> I think that this is a great opportunity to promote Zope and the ZDP, and 
> _the_ motivation to actually finish this project!
> 

I agree. It's just that someone should find the time to be the main 
editor. And editing a collaborative work such as ZBook is not going 
to be a piece of cake. We could lighten the burden a bit by assigning 
separate editors for separate subsections of the book, though. In the 
sense that the ZBook would not quite be 'one story', but more of a 
volume of coherent contributions, together making up the book length 
documentation of Zope. THis would allow for (at least slighter) more 
overlap between chapters and a greater variety of style.

On the other hand I do not see problems with 
concurrent/complementary/hybrid publishing forms. Perhaps the book 
should not contain more material, but it will almost certainly be 
cheaper (and less annoying/time consuming) to buy a printed book than 
printing a (say) pdf file yourself. And reading still is done much 
easier on paper than on the screen. The digital version has other 
advantages: it's easier searchable, if using Zope (in combination 
with XML) it may be organized in many ways, and it can easily be 
adapted and updated. Examples fit more nicely into the text if you 
have an electronic version. Etcetera.

> Crawling-back-into-hiding-ly your's,

Unfortunately

not-so-prominently-here-either

Rik