On May 15, 2006, at 3:26 PM, Logan Capaldo wrote: > > On May 15, 2006, at 5:06 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote: > >> Okay, I'll admit it. I'm really pissed off. I don't pay attention to >> what goes on on the #ruby-talk IRC channel these days all that much, >> but something happened this afternoon that thoroughly pissed me off. >> >> [0515/16.53] hatezilla: seriously, pick it up. if you're iffy, get >> on emule and search >> for "ruby for rails" ... there's tons of pdfs floating around if you >> know where to look >> >> I consider David Black a friend of mine. I am *seriously* pissed off >> that some pissant little freak would advocate this action at all. I >> was similarly annoyed that people reacted as badly to Dave Thomas's >> announcement that the Rails 2nd Edition would be the same price. >> These >> people have done a *lot* for the Ruby community. >> >> They deserve your financial support. Don't be a pissant thief. Even >> temporarily. There are "sample chapters" for a reason. >> >> > > What really boggles my mind about this is, yes a book is easier and > maybe you can't afford it, but its not like there aren't docs. You > even have the source code. I am sympathetic to your annoyance. I don't think it is OK to suggest/ advocate downloading ruby books in the IRC channel or on this mailing list: most readers here can afford to buy programming books; it's bad to advocate illegal activities in public; free documentation, tutorials, source code, advice, etc is available; and it's discourteous to authors who regularly give free help here. But is every case of piracy deserving of the same great scorn? I realise this may be a tangential issue, but if someone can't afford a book and is not going to buy it either way, whom has he harmed by downloading it? -- Elliot Temple http://www.curi.us/blog/