[scribus] the docs license

[Anke Lange]

Hallo list

at the moment I'm writing a course for scribus 1.4 so following all this 
discussion, I ask myself, if I'm actually allowed to do so.

I wrote courses for Gimp (2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6), KompoZer (0.7.10,.0.8b3) 
and Calc (3.4), and a sort of course (about 100 pages) for 1.3.3 to use 
for teaching classes (all German).

I'm not using the manual. I haven't found it, yet, so I'm struggeling a 
bit here and there and try out a lot on the program. I haven't found out 
what the new tool is there for, for example, but I will.. sooner or later ;)

Just to add my experience to this discussion about becoming rich on 
selling manuals/courses for OpenSource Projects... Everybody loves the 
programs, everybody loves my courses, but only as long as they are free. 
Not a lot of people are willing to pay for them. So believe me, you 
don't become rich with them. People believe more in  "free bear" than in 
free speach ;)

I do agree, that if somebody uses somebody elses work, he should at 
least mention his name, put a link to the page... But don't it won't 
make anybody rich ;)




>> On 04/11/2012 07:36 AM, ale rimoldi wrote:
>>> ... because there is a long history of people taking free scribus
>>> resources and making profit out of it....
>>>
>>> let's get real: there is almost no chance that somebody can make a
>>> huge profit from taking the manual, printing it and selling it.
>>>
>> If the docs are worth nothing, then why this ongoing argument about
>> the particulars of its licensing?
> in my eyes scribus docs are very valuable but have no commercial value.
>
> or at least have no commercial value that would lead to profits that are
> higher than the effort a publishing house would have to put in the
> promotion of a manual.
>
> ciao
> a.l.e
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:07:10 -0400
> From: john Culleton<John at wexfordpress.com>
> To: scribus at lists.scribus.net
> Subject: Re: [scribus] the docs license
> Message-ID:<20120411110710.612e8587 at sda7.wexfordpress.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:24:36 +0400
> Alexandre Prokoudine<alexandre.prokoudine at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 6:15 PM, john Culleton wrote:
>>
>>> Gimp had a huge manual that you could download or buy in paper
>>> form. Today's manual is online, and in html format. It is pretty
>>> much kept up to date. It is not downloadable unless you want to
>>> deal with converting a manual in html format. Also the content
>>> is in individual chunks of html, easy to access online but tedious
>>> to download in its entirety.
>> First of all, we don't sell the official user manual. It's done by
>> someone else who asked and got a confirmation that it's legal.
>>
>> There's also nothing particularly tedious about downloading a PDF
>> file.
>>
>>> So what model should Scribus follow? In the case of Inkscape the
>>> manual author and the publisher of same is one person.
>> No and no.
>>
>> 1. Tav's manual is a de-facto manual, not de jure. It was so easy to
>> refer to the online version that it kind of became the default manual.
>> But it's not a community project (which is fine with me).
>>
>> 2.. Tav is not the publisher.
>>
>> Alexandre Prokoudine
>> http://libregraphicsworld.org
>
> Well, when you click on "help" in Inkscape it offers you the
> Tavmong Bah manual online. So de facto is close enough. From the
> user's perspective it is very similar to the Gimp online manual
> or even the Scribus online manual. You click on help, and then on
> the online manual.
>
> Tav caused his product to be published. But he is the author and
> not the publisher. I was sloppy with my terminology.
>
> I did not say that  downloading a pdf is tedious. I said that
> downloading a manual consisting of many individual
> html pages, then converting and assembling them in printable form
> (pdf) is tedious. Dealing with a printed manual and a separate
> batch of downloaded color illos is also tedious.
>
> AFAIK we don't have a Tavmong Bah, capable of writing a
> comprehensive manual, willing to put it online for free,
> and capable of getting it published commercially. And our mutual
> experience with the publication of "The Scribus Manual" was not
> good. The "publisher" apparently had never published a book
> before, and has never published a paper book since. Any of a dozen
> micro publishers on the self-publishing list or the
> pub-forum list could have done better, including the undersigned.
> So if Scribus ever goes that route again a publisher with a track
> record of some kind would be an improvement.
>

-- 
Anke Lange
An der Landwehr 25
49076 Osnabrück
Telefon 0541 6004299
gimp-werkstatt at gmx.de

www.kreativ-workshops.net
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