Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 17:16:23 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: terry@lambert.org, jbryant@tfs.net, dennis@etinc.com, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commercial vendors registry Message-ID: <199704150016.RAA19987@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <7046.861060236@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Apr 14, 97 04:23:56 pm
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> > I would write a book for FreeBSD, but... > > > > o It takes ~2000 hours to write a decent book. This is one > > man year. FreeBSD can't maintain stable interfaces for > > one man year, so my book would be outdated. Linux can > > mantain stable interfaces because they have to walk a > > terrifically fine line between all their various distributions. > > Strange. I've just signed up with Addison-Wesley to do the > long-awaited FreeBSD book and I don't anticipate any trouble like > this. It's also not like I'm documenting the kernel interfaces or > anything since that's not the kind of book that the great majority of > people really need anyway - they need something which describes how to > create various types of FreeBSD based solutions. If somebody wants to > write "The FreeBSD Kernel Hacker's Guide" then they're more than > encouraged to go for it, but I don't think that the market is quite > ready to support that kind of book. A general "FreeBSD Bible", yes, > and that's what I'm going to write. A decent technical book is approximately one man year. If it isn't one man year, it's a revision of other peoples writing (acceptable practice, but a rehash), or it's just not a decent technical book. For "The FreeBSD Bible", if you intend it to be an equivalent to "The Linux Bible"... well, all I can say is that if you document at that depth, the documentation will be out of date by the time you publish. "The Linux Bible" got away with it because they were basically a rehash of much of "The Linux Documentation Project". > > o I would have to voice my honest opinions about some very > > idiotic things which never change, even though they have > > been pointed at time and again and the statement made "hey, > > look here at this idiotic thing". > > Which perhaps suggests that pointing at things and saying "hey, look > here at this idiotic thing" isn't the way to change things? Naw, > you're right, that's too logical a conclusion to make - what was I > thinking? Well, apparently submitting code isn't the way to do it either. You have to be aware of problems before you can correct them. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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