Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 10:54:44 +0200 (IST) From: Nadav Eiron <nadav@cs.technion.ac.il> To: Giles Lean <giles@nemeton.com.au> Cc: "Sean J. Schluntz" <schluntz@pinpt.com>, chat@freebsd.org, doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Suggestion for the FreeBSD Book. Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95-heb-2.07.970129104742.24858A-100000@csd> In-Reply-To: <199701282138.IAA26117@nemeton.com.au>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Giles Lean wrote: > > On Tue, 28 Jan 97 10:06:14 Pacific Standard Time "Sean J. Schluntz" wrote: > > > What if the FreeBSD Book was published like some cookbooks. A shrink wrapped > > set of three ring hole punched papers with index pages and a small binder > > (Fiction Hardback sized.) Then people could subscribe to the updates, and > > FreeBSD could just mail out the sections that have changed. > > Every vendor I've seen shipping documentation this way has stopped. > > Too ugly, too time consuming, too expensive for the users who have to > do the updates. DEC for one, used to have the VMS docs in binders up until V6.0 (that's a huge set of docs - some 30 or more books) and then they moved to paper back. The official excuse was that the binders are not recycleable (so now DEC is out to save the rain forest or something?) while the paperbacks are printed on recycled paper. IMHO, the binders were simply too expensive to manufacture and ship (they weight about twice as much as the paper back version). To the user I guess the binders are a blessing. The paperbacks can't be left open on a specific page without them falling apart after a week of heavy use. Since they have some 30 books, and each version updates just a small subset of them (usually up to 8) they still don't have to reproduce the whole set for each update. Bottom line is, IMHO, that binedr updates are not practical for the *vendor* not the user, especially if you have a small number of volumes. In most cases you'll replace a complete volume anyhow. As a user, I like it *alot*, especially for something the size of the VMS docs. For a single volume - I guess it doesn't really matter. > > Giles > > Nadav
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.GSO.3.95-heb-2.07.970129104742.24858A-100000>