Comments on: free math books http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2005/01/free-math-books/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:10:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: David Carlton http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2005/01/free-math-books/comment-page-1/#comment-1058 David Carlton Sun, 23 Jan 2005 05:32:00 +0000 /?p=44#comment-1058 Interesting. Your boss's book is, alas, copyright CUP - I really wish academic publishers would get with the times (or even with the second half of the twentieth century) and not try to grab copyright of everything that passes through their hands. And, while it's available for a free download, it has other restrictions (albeit unclear ones) - you can't make paper copies, but you presumably can make and distribute electronic copies (or can only the author do that?), but you presumably can't distribute modified copies in electronic or paper form?. Still, it's a start... A discussion in Debian mailing lists was where I first learned about the GFDL. And Stallman's responses were really depressing; as I recall, they basically boiled down to him saying "yes, GFDL products really are free, and people always bring up bad arguments against the GFDL, so I'm not going to argue with you". Sigh. Interesting. Your boss’s book is, alas, copyright CUP - I really wish academic publishers would get with the times (or even with the second half of the twentieth century) and not try to grab copyright of everything that passes through their hands. And, while it’s available for a free download, it has other restrictions (albeit unclear ones) - you can’t make paper copies, but you presumably can make and distribute electronic copies (or can only the author do that?), but you presumably can’t distribute modified copies in electronic or paper form?. Still, it’s a start…

A discussion in Debian mailing lists was where I first learned about the GFDL. And Stallman’s responses were really depressing; as I recall, they basically boiled down to him saying “yes, GFDL products really are free, and people always bring up bad arguments against the GFDL, so I’m not going to argue with you”. Sigh.

]]> By: Chris http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2005/01/free-math-books/comment-page-1/#comment-1053 Chris Sat, 22 Jan 2005 21:30:19 +0000 /?p=44#comment-1053 I enjoyed this post. <blockquote>Which makes me wonder: are there reputable scholarly publishers out there that allow their authors to make the books in question freely available in electronic editions?</blockquote> Yes. My boss's book (<a href="http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itprnn/book.html">Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms</a>) has the full PDF available for free download, and is published by <a href="http://uk.cambridge.org/">Cambridge University Press</a>. Sadly, he says that it was a huge struggle to find a publisher who would both allow the book to be freely distributed online and wouldn't want to make the hardcopy book prohibitively expensive. As for licensing, you're correct that the GFDL isn't a free license as the world knows it. Indeed, Debian have rejected it as being against their Debian Free Software Guidelines, which leaves them in the sad position of having to file critical bugs against any software distributed in Debian with GFDL-licensed documentation. (And the wonderfully ironic position of getting to tell Richard Stallman that his licenses aren't free enough for them.) There's a <a href="http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html">Debian GFDL position statement</a> online. - C. I enjoyed this post.

Which makes me wonder: are there reputable scholarly publishers out there that allow their authors to make the books in question freely available in electronic editions?

Yes. My boss’s book (Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms) has the full PDF available for free download, and is published by Cambridge University Press. Sadly, he says that it was a huge struggle to find a publisher who would both allow the book to be freely distributed online and wouldn’t want to make the hardcopy book prohibitively expensive.

As for licensing, you’re correct that the GFDL isn’t a free license as the world knows it. Indeed, Debian have rejected it as being against their Debian Free Software Guidelines, which leaves them in the sad position of having to file critical bugs against any software distributed in Debian with GFDL-licensed documentation. (And the wonderfully ironic position of getting to tell Richard Stallman that his licenses aren’t free enough for them.) There’s a Debian GFDL position statement online.

- C.

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