[TriLUG] writing about a OSS project you had nothing to do with

[Steve Litt]

I agree with Matt Frye's three points, although personally I don't know how 
necessary it is to donate. I mean, if you write about the VimOutliner 
project, you certainly don't need to donate to it. Of course, if you donate, 
you just might become their *official* book, and that makes you more money.

SteveT

On Tuesday 05 June 2007 15:50, Matt Frye wrote:
> Having written about many open source projects, I observe the
> following guidelines:
>
> 1) give credit where credit is due.  when I wrote about python, i made
> sure to mention guido .
> 2) if you're writing a book about open source, it's nice to donate a
> percentage of the proceeds to the project.  you don't *have* to, but
> they didn't *have* to make it open source.
> 3) include them.  most developers or project leaders are unlikely to
> write about their projects in the way you would write a book or an
> article.  interview them.  get the facts straight.
>
> Your editor can provide you with many more tidbits.
>
> Matt Frye
>
> On 6/5/07, Greg Brown <gwbrown1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So, Triluggers, I'm wondering would about the ethics of profiting through
> > writing about a OSS project that you, yourself, had nothing to do with? 
> > Say I decide to write a book about any OSS project, say, SSH.  Better
> > yet, what about Small Business Network Management Using OpenNMS.  That
> > project is one that is managed locally.  What if I did decide to write
> > such a book?  Could I be stopped or could the project pressure the
> > publisher using their OSS licenses to have the book stopped?  Or am I
> > just free like the wind to write such a book and profit personally?  For
> > the purposes of this argument let's say I would keep all the money and
> > not return any to the project (just for the sake of argument, people).
> >
> > What do you think?  I can't imagine all the OSS related books were
> > blessed by the specific OSS projects yet there seems to be something not
> > quite right about it.
> >
> > Greg
> > --
> > TriLUG mailing list        :
> > http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ 
> > : http://trilug.org/faq/
> > TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/