[OpenLayers-Users] OpenLayers Book

[Brad Spencer]

I think this is a great initiative and thanks to all those involved!

Whilst documentation is important to have, I agree that the authors should
not go unrewarded. I would be happy to pay an amount of dollars that I would
otherwise pay for a book which ends up collecting dust (well most of them).
Say a $US 50 to get access to the website? If all OL applications developers
did this we would be collectively giving back just a small piece of the huge
benefits of using OL in the first place. I wonder how many others out there
would be prepared to donate this amount?

Cheers, Brad....

-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces at openlayers.org [mailto:users-bounces at openlayers.org] On
Behalf Of Christopher Schmidt
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 9:49 AM
To: Chip Taylor
Cc: users at openlayers.org
Subject: Re: [OpenLayers-Users] OpenLayers Book

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 02:31:14PM -0800, Chip Taylor wrote:
> Just curious about your statement "I don't think we should take it upon
> ourselves to waste beautiful Saturdays generating documentation for free
> (person opinion)."  Why would you "waste your beautiful Saturdays"
> generating code for free then?

I think the same sentiment applies to code. The idea is that there
should not be an expectation from the community that all this hard work
comes for free -- a sentiment that many seem to express. (In fact, this
whole thread started off by someone volunteering me to write a book.)

>  Open Source is cool, Open Source is fun but
> there has to be a reason for a person to make that effort to develop the
> software.  Most times that reason is the pride in a job well done and the
> appreciation one feels when you see your efforts being used.  

And sometimes, it needs to be more than that. In other words, "If you
really love the software, support it: financially, documentation wise,
code wise, or whatever, rather than expecting things to magically happen
from the people who have supported the project in the past."

I can't speak for Tim directly here, but that is the impression I get. 

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta
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