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

[Steve Litt]

On Tuesday 05 June 2007 15:40, Greg Brown 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? 

That's fine. I wrote "Samba Unleashed", and I didn't write any of Samba.

> 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?

I think that's fine.


>  Could I be stopped or could the project pressure the publisher using their
> OSS licenses to have the book stopped?  

Your publisher knows the details. If anything, you might need to get 
permission for your screenshots -- check.

> 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).

Heck yeah! Everyone's gotta make a living. Now of course, if you returned some 
of the money to the project, you might become their OFFICIAL book, and that 
translates into sales.

I wrote Samba Unleashed, and nobody on the Samba list said "hey Steve, you're 
making money from our work!"

My newest book is "Learn Vim Tonight: Use the Worlds Most Productive Editor 
Tomorrow", and nobody from the Vim list insulted me.

>
> 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.

I think that's just free floating open source guilt, where we all start 
thinking we don't deserve to make a living unless a corporation pays us by 
the month. I'd imagine the VAST majority of open source projects were not 
started to make money, never imagined themselves making money, and don't care 
if others make money as long as those others don't privatize the code.

You should read the October 2003 Linux Productivity Magazine -- "A Free 
Software Project Moves On" 
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/200310/200310.htm). It covers the 
motivations of the project's originator and contributors, and I think you'll 
see those people were paid quite well even though nobody ever gave them a 
cent for their programming work. They were paid in the higher productivity 
achieved through use of the best darned outline processor on the face of the 
earth.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
http://www.troubleshooters.com/