[CMake] 4th Edition CMake book now in stock

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2008-02-05 14:04-0500 Ken Martin wrote:

> The 4th edition CMake books have arrived and you can order them from
> http://kitware.com/products/cmakebook.html They should show up on Amazon in
> the near future as well. A summary table of contents is included below.

I looked at that site, and there was no mention of an electronic (PDF)
version.  I far prefer that format since it is friendlier to trees, takes up
no space in my office, is much easier to search, and I can adjust the size
of the text when my eyes get tired.

>From the CMake promotion aspect, the more the license on an electronic
version gives freedom to the user the better. For example, "Version Control
with Subversion" is a free (both in the sense of cost and user freedom) book
(at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/) which very much encourages version control
users to use subversion.  To take an example from further afield, Baen
publishing promotes their books and authors with complete electronic
versions of SciFi novels of their most popular authors (such as David
Weber).  The versions are free of cost and the only restriction on user
freedom is you are not allowed to sell the electronic version to anybody
else.  Judging by the popularity of Baen authors and the discussion of this
promotion on their web site, the idea has been a huge success.

If you are concerned with short-term money rather than long-term promotion
of CMake and the potential money that might come from that, then you will
probably want to distribute an electronic version of your book with reduced
user freedom. I think such a restricted version would be acceptable so long
as at minimum the user was free to make backup copies for their own use.

Regardless of license, I believe you could sell quite a few electronic
versions of your book so long as the reduced production cost (no printing
cost, no shipping cost except bandwidth) of the electronic version was
acknowledged in the price.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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