[Novalug] OT - Wikipedia and the art of censorship

[John Warren]

IMHO, the term "open source book" refers to the freedom to write and edit.
In a traditional paper media, the book is a closed cycle between private
author(s), editor(s) and publisher(s).  In an open model, the authors and
editors roles are public and therefore open to anyone and the role of the
publisher is handled by an automaton and therefore has no bias.

It may sound like a somewhat trivial difference considering the large groups
of authors and editors that work on some text books.  But the actual hurdle
of getting a book published in an academic or professional setting has
significant requirements that excludes a majority of the amateurs and
professionals working in the field.  This means that a majority, or at the
very least, a very large part, of the real world experience and knowledge is
excluded from the paper publishing cycle.

In contrast, an "open source" book may, in theory, be able to incorporate
more working knowledge on a subject from actual working professionals. Since
the requirements to contribute are trivial anyone can easily contribute an
anonymous edit or quickly expand a paragraph.  The power of peer review
keeps the "open source" knowledge base accurate and the ease of access helps
spread the knowledge to new working professionals who can in turn easily
contribute their knowledge.

"open source book" may not be the best term, but it works.

-John W

On 8/20/07, Ken Kauffman <kkauffman at headfog.com> wrote:
>
> Can someone please explain what an "open source book" really means?  My
> mind
> keeps screaming that it's a dumb as h3ll use of "open source", but I might
> not have the right (marketing) angle.
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: novalug-bounces at calypso.tux.org
> [mailto:novalug-bounces at calypso.tux.org] On Behalf Of Dan Arico
> Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 10:11 AM
> To: novalug at calypso.tux.org
> Subject: Re: [Novalug] OT - Wikipedia and the art of censorship
>
>
> >   I suspect it's a scale-of-effort thing.  Writing a 2-screen article,
> > or correcting a mis-fact is the act of a few minutes.
> >
> >   Writing a chapter is the act of a month.
> >
> >   A textbook is on the scale of an integrated accounging package,
> > while a wiki article is on the scale of a simple solitair game.
>
> There's another aspect to books, as well - portability. An open source
> textbook would be in an electronic format by necessity. The printing
> industry needs a lot of expensive equipment, manpower and materials to
> turn a text into a textbook sitting on a shelf for someone to buy. A lot
> of that is a fixed cost distributed over the number of volumes sold. Not
> much money can be spared to pay an author on a per book basis.
>
> So how do we make an electronic text portable? The closest thing we've
> got that's generally available is the laptop. I don't know about the
> rest of you, but I find it awkward to curl up with a laptop to read.
>
> Yes, there are more portable devices available, but they tend to be
> expensive, have tiny screens, be encumbered by DRM or all of the above.
> How hard would it be to build an open source device with simple
> controls, a decent sized screen and a USB port for loading and unloading
> text? Single board computers are getting really small. Flash memory is
> getting really big. The cost and power requirements of displays are
> coming down. We've got the OS.
>
> We could be on the verge of a revolution in the publishing industry.
>
> Dan Arico
>
>
> --
> One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
> One OS to bring them all, and in the Darkness bind them,
> In the land of Redmond, where the Sales Reps lie.
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