[R] RH5.2 bundle

[Martyn Plummer]

Hedderik van Rijn wrote:
> 
> [About publishing a R-book]
> 
> > > The advantage of this is (a) it is *much* more convenient for the user,
> > > (b) it gets some money into the R community, especially if it was sold
> > > directly over the web, which could help finance the next version (c)  it
> > > is a serious publication that will get cited with an ISBN number and (d)
> > > it will encourage the managers of the institutions where all you good
> >
> [...]
> > Secondly, should one stick to the "freely distributable" way, even if
> > actual books were produced and would any publisher accept such a
> > scheme? I agree that ISBN numbers are important for several reasons.
> 
> I'm not sure whether you refers with the freely distributable also to the
> "to be written book", but I think one might be able to find a publisher to
> accept a scheme in which an book accompanies freely available software and
> reference manuals. For example, although I know the user base is somewhat
> different, "The LaTeX companion" is a good example of this scheme.

I think the issue is whether an R book should be published under terms which
allow it to be freely distributed and modified, like R itself. Richard
Stallman has called for free software to be accompanied by free manuals
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-doc.html
The FSF does publish some books this way (with ISBNs). O'Reilly has also
published copylefted books at the request of the author, but Tim O'Reilly
says that the arguments for free books are less compelling than for free
software.
http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/orabooks_os.html

Martyn
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