"Ben Tilly" <ben_tilly / hotmail.com> writes:

> If you wrote the book as a "work for hire" then you might
> want to check with a lawyer as to whether you can release
> under another license (the copyright having passed to the
> publisher).  But I suspect that you still own the copyright
> to the text (again I am not a lawyer) in which case you can
> release any number of times.

OK, for (as we non-lawyers say) the avoidance of doubt...

Addison Wesley is the copyright holder in the book: the copyright was
assigned to them when we delivered the text. As the copyright holder,
they can do pretty much what they want with it.

When we got the idea to release the book under some open license, I
approached our editor, Mike Hendrickson, and sent him a sample of the
Open Publication license. He got back to me within a week,
enthusiastically embracing the idea of open-sourcing the book. He has
the copyright, so he can do that. The files we released still contain
the Addison Wesley copyright, but they're licensed for Open
Publication. It just the same as Ruby itself: Matz copyrights the
code, and licenses it freely for us to use.

Jim Freeze <jim / freeze.org> writes:

> I'm curious though, no party's had an objection to releasing the
> book online in fear that it would decrease sales of the book?

I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not really that worried, to
be honest. Selling books is not really a living, it's just fun. What
_would_ give me a buzz though is seeing the Ruby community grow. This
might be a small step along the way.



So there's no problem, really.


Share and enjoy.


Dave