From: twinxor@...
Date: 2007-04-26T17:10:09+09:00
Subject: Programming Ruby: Improvements, copyright issues

I've been learning Ruby with the help of version 1 of the introductory
book Programming Ruby, which has been released by the publisher under
the Open Publication License. Of course, there are newer books
available, but I've found the Pickaxe is convenient because it's free
and available as HTML files.

I've noticed a couple issues with the online version of the book, and
I'm interesting in working on them. In particular, I'd like to:

- Add code samples and images not extracted from the paper text
- Add more hyperlinks, and anchors within each chapter for more
precise links
- Expand the table of contents to include subsections of each chapter
- Add an index
- Make the library reference pages more consistent

I haven't seen all these changes implemented elsewhere, but several
folks have done some work on them. For instance, Gavin Kistner has
made a version available at phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby with a more
detailed TOC and an index.

I'd just build on the existing versions, but there's some copyright
issues too. Newer versions of the book, such as the one hosted at
RubyCentral, aren't so free. The license is more restrictive, banning
"substantively modified versions", which would seem to preclude the
changes I'm talking about. The changelog for the Debian package
(http://packages.debian.org/stable/doc/rubybook) discusses the license
change - a previous version of the online version was licensed under
the OPL alone, with no additional conditions. (I can't even find the
XML versions Dave refers to in the README - I'd be interested to see
what others have cooked up with those.)

So, I'm asking for a little backstory and advice. Why was the license
changed? Would it be sensible to do some work on the old version of
the book, even though it's dated?

Thanks,
Jesse