Re: The future of this book

[Gary V. Vaughan]

On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 17:00, Akim Demaille wrote:
> Hi Gary!

Hi Akim!

> Pleased to hear from you :)  What does RL mean?

Real Life =)O|

>  >> This book needs a maintainer, as IMNSHO that's what lacked amongst us,
>  >> and led to this disaster.
> 
>  Gary> O'Reilly could have done a better job with their editing and
>  Gary> timely feedback. 
> 
> I have griefs against them, and I shall not hide them.  I respect
> Andy, but he has been a terrible coach.  I expected my feedback, and
> also something consistent with the feedback I had from other people,
> who liked the material.
> 
>  Gary> But what's done is gone.  I agree.  This option is good.  I
>  Gary> would like to continue to work on this though and potentially
>  Gary> sell it to a publisher (under the GFDL) when it's done.  I
>  Gary> think this is only possible if we (the authors) retain the
>  Gary> copyright, but I'd be happy to hear RMS' and Arnold Robbins'
>  Gary> view on the matter.
> 
> I think this is a nice direction.  Actually, I recently bought books
> from RMS, they (physically) look great!  Maybe the FSF is the editor
> we want?

Maybe! We should talk to RMS to find out what our options are, and
whether we would be able to accept contributions without confusing
issues of copyright ownership.

When it comes down to it, I have already missed an opportunity to put
some serious effort in, so I don't have an objection to signing the book
over to the FSF if that is the what everyone wants to do.

>  Gary> Realistically, I am not going to have much time until after my
>  Gary> 2nd Dan grading in May, and after that perhaps two evenings per
>  Gary> week.
> 
> I'm not going to have more time than I already had.

Do you mean you have no more time at all for the book, or that the time
you have is on the same schedule as before (what was that btw?)?

>  Gary> I'm open to persuasion, but would prefer to own the copyright
>  Gary> and retain the option to publish at a later date...
> 
> If I can be convinced this *will* happen, I'm OK.  I'm kind of
> pessimistic, given the failure we experienced.  So I'm in favor of a
> hard deadline: if we fail to prove we are able to manage this book in
> the near future, let's face our impotency, and handle the baby to some
> other guys (I have to make the same move with a2ps :).

Deal! =)O|

Cheers,
        Gary.