Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 08:29:37 -0800 From: Don Wilde <don@partsnow.com> To: Open Systems Networking <opsys@mail.webspan.net> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Book (Forget ORA) Message-ID: <34BB9671.6CC71DBE@partsnow.com> References: <Pine.BSF.3.95.980112160906.11129A-100000@orion.webspan.net>
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>> forget ORA << On the contrary, I just got a very nice reply from Tim O'Reilly himself. Although we didn't address the issue of him publishing Greg's book, he is open to the use of FreeBSD in books where FreeBSD is the right choice. You can't deny that he's right that our user base is smaller than Linux. He says he's rather disappointed at the results of his Linux-specific books, so I can understand his reluctance. The reality is that you've got to write something worth publishing. O'Reilly's problem is that he's already published books on most of the stuff a FreeBSD book would cover, and Greg's book certainly doesn't leave him much room. Greg didn't leave much out! There's also ORA's 'X User Tools' which sits in the middle, and that covers a lot of ground, too. I do think there's room for a swoopy-apps book written about real-world FreeBSD projects. I've got some neat stuff I'm brewing with web and fax integration, Amancio's fxtv is definitely a winner, and I'm sure Wes Peters could come up with some good juicy apps, and that's just three of us. Just describing that monster server conglomeration that hosts CDROM.com would make a great chapter. Maybe we could even talk the Yahoo guys into giving us a diagram of how they use FreeBSD servers in their system. I'm up for spearheading such an effort. I'd like to see a book with maybe 20 projects showcased that highlight the power and flexibility of FreeBSD and the other freeware tools that are out there (like Perl, GNU, ghostscript, etc.), and the awesome capability this cheap Intel hardware gives us. Any offerings? Here's Tim's reply, in its entirety: > > It has always looked to us that the FreeBSD market has too > small a user base to support a lot of specific books. Our > experience with Linux, which has a much larger installed base, > hasn't been that overwhelming either. And as you say, a lot > of our existing books are already appropriate. > > That being said, we'd be open to hearing from people who > have specific book proposals, which address both the need > for the specific book and why a FreeBSD version will succeed. > (Are you thinking of something general, like Running Linux? > Or books that drill down to specific topics, as we do > with most of our books?) > > Anyway, feel free to pass this on to the list. > > > -- > Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. > 101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472 > 707-829-0515 ext 266, Fax 707-829-0104, tim@ora.com > http://www.oreilly.com http://software.oreilly.com http://www.songline.com -- oooOOO O O O o * * * * * * o ___ _________ _________ ________ _________ _________ ___==_ V_=_=_DW ===--- Don Wilde [don@PartsNow.com] [http://www.PartsNow.com ] /oo0000oo-oo--oo-ooo---ooo-ooo---ooo-ooo--ooo-ooo---ooo-ooo---ooo-oo--oo
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