On 5/16/06, Giles Bowkett <gilesb / gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For all the emotion involved, the reality is that in every field,
> illegal downloads have an effect on sales. The effect is to increase
> sales for niche players and decrease sales for mainstream players.
> This has been found with movies and with music, so it's probably the
> case for code as well. Java is the mainstream player, and Rails is the
> niche. Irrespective of any passionate but utterly futile moral
> debates, the ultimate economic result of this phenomenon is good for
> anybody selling Rails books, including David Black.

I agree that it works that way, I just don't agree with the
perspective that you're viewing it from.  What if you change the scope
from 'books about all programming languages' to 'books about ruby
and/or rails'?  In the world of Ruby, and Rails, David Black is hardly
a 'niche player'.

It might help to own a copy of 'Ruby for Rails' to understand why I
think that way.  I'm about half way through it, and I highly recommend
that all Ruby users _buy_ a copy.  It's an excellent book, and helps
build a stronger understanding of Ruby in general (ie: it's _not_ just
for Rails users).

I think Chris Pine's 'Learn to Program' is probably the best example
of free distribution leading to increased sales.  He started out by
publishing a free tutorial, people found out that it was well written,
and was a great intro for beginners, and it eventually became a book.

Before his book was published, Chris might be considered a 'niche
player', he wasn't known for any major library or framework, he wasn't
part of the Ruby or Rails core teams, he wasn't part of the PragProg
team, he wasn't one of the founders of Ruby Central, etc.  Now that
his book has been published, along with the fact that it was published
by PragProg, he's no longer a 'niche player', at least in my mind.

I guess it comes down to who is a niche player, and personally, I
don't think it's right to use that subjective decision to determine
that it's ok to download any author's pdf, because I think they're a
niche player, and by downloading it, I'm going to help them down the
road.

> --
> Giles Bowkett
> http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
>
>


-- 
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)
The best answer to most questions is "it depends".