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The Wayland Book Is Now Freely Available

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  • #21
    Originally posted by frank007 View Post

    The question is: why should we buy a book for a freely available open-source project?
    I've always advocated reading the official docs instead of random "hello world" tutorials. But there are instances when you need to learn about good practices in an area quickly, without getting into the nitty-gritty details. In (preparation for) those instances, I have forked out cash for physical books.
    It's not nice when the software changes and your hard copy doesn't, that makes it way harder to sell programming books these days.

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    • #22
      Originally posted by frank007 View Post

      The question is: why should we buy a book for a freely available open-source project?
      There are many Linux related books and most of them are not free, so I don't see any sensation here.. If you can read code like a book then you don't have to buy books, I guess.

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      • #23
        Originally posted by kpedersen View Post
        For example, C and C++ is an open standard and there are many (expensive) books on that.
        Unfortunately, this isn't really true. ISO standards are not free, or particularly cheap (over $100 for a PDF of the C standard).

        But your general point holds.

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        • #24
          Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post
          So, no books?

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          • #25
            Originally posted by kpedersen View Post
            To go with my "Motif Programming: The Essentials and More"
            Next to your "Programming the Display Postscript system with X"?

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            • #26
              Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post

              Prepare EPUBs and PDFs are on the TODO list
              Well then we don’t have a book do we. I went to the site to download to me E-Book reader and found nothing compatible. It isn’t unreasonable to expect something more than a bunch of web pages if a “book” is being advertised.

              The thing here is that this is exactly what one wants in a book form and not as a web site.

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              • #27
                Drew DeVault is a powerhouse. The Linux desktop community is lucky to have him.

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by frank007 View Post

                  The question is: why should we buy a book for a freely available open-source project?
                  Mainly expertise. The same reason anyone gets paid for the knowledge the posses.

                  More reasons.
                  • There are no docs.
                  • The existing docs are incomplete.
                  • The existing docs are brain dumps which make numerous assumptions about the readers knowledge of the project.
                  • The docs haven't been updated since version 1.0 of the project, and the latest release only has a passing resemblance to v1.0.
                  • The docs are for developers by developers.
                  • The author can focus on introducing the project to people rather then being comprehensive.
                  • The proceeds go back to the project.
                  • The author is really good at explaining concepts and has a deep understanding of the project and how it's used which results in enlightening insights the newbie friendly docs don't even get close to touching.

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                  • #29
                    Maybe it makes now a bit progress. Wayland is now 12 Years Old and the adoption is not so nice and has disadvantages in performance. And is there still the Problem that Wayland requires kernel parts that are only for GPL drivers?

                    Lets hope for the next years

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by portablenuke View Post

                      Mainly expertise. The same reason anyone gets paid for the knowledge the posses.

                      More reasons.
                      • There are no docs.
                      • The existing docs are incomplete.
                      • The existing docs are brain dumps which make numerous assumptions about the readers knowledge of the project.
                      • The docs haven't been updated since version 1.0 of the project, and the latest release only has a passing resemblance to v1.0.
                      • The docs are for developers by developers.
                      • The author can focus on introducing the project to people rather then being comprehensive.
                      • The proceeds go back to the project.
                      • The author is really good at explaining concepts and has a deep understanding of the project and how it's used which results in enlightening insights the newbie friendly docs don't even get close to touching.
                      In fact, there is no reasons that someone else write this book. The wayland's developers should write it.

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