Re: Back to books

["Peter Hill" <corwin@...>]

>> I forgot to tell... I'm using the draft book A LOT, it's great, and
>> that's why I came up with the "collaborative book" idea on the first
>> place, if everybody contributed a little with (the missing part of)
>> documentation, it would eventually catch up with the language :-)

Markus Fritsche:
> As far as I'm concerned, the draft version of this book is only free to
> read, not free to be extended? I mean, we're living in a world full of
> copyright issues - so, is anyone allowed to write a new book on the base
> of the existing?

I guess it depends somewhat on the nature of the book. As Lua is open source
it is reasonable that its manual would be as well. Since Lua is an embedded
language it is imperitive that the portion of the manual dealing with the
language itself would be allowed to be modified & distributed to potential
embedded-script users.

As for 'introduction to' books I guess it is up to the author of the book.
However, given the size of the Lua community, if the book was prohibitive
then I have no doubt someone else would write & publish one for free. The
"collaborative book" offer above supports that. Given that Lua has been so
generously made available to the public, it is in the nature of Lua devotees
that such a book would emerge in a similar free nature. Of course donations
are no doubt cheerfully accepted by most people!

*cheers*
Peter Hill.