what would you pay for good kernel documentation?

Dave Germiquet davegermiquet-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Sat Jun 5 16:20:51 UTC 2010


Hi Robert,

If your thinking of writing a book on kernel development you might
want to think about a subscription ebook based model.  What this
allows you to do is update your book dynamically when things change
and people can always have the latest documentation because there
subscribed to your books.

I saw this example from some other book writers. The reason is because
by the time printed books come out, everything is out of date however
your subscription base could be modified when new changes happen.

Make your ebook printable,and other formats and you should be good to go.

Not sure how many people are in the market for kernel development.

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 7:31 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday-L09J2beyid0N/H6P543EQg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>  (i posted a longer form of this on the kernel newbies mailing list
> earlier this morning, so i'll just hit the highlights.)
>
>  to make a long story much shorter, i'm sure there are a number of
> people who know that, for quite some time, i've been a fairly prolific
> writer of things tutorial and educational, including my former kernel
> newbies column at linux.com
> (http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Kernel_newbie_columns).
> sadly, all of that has been a labour of love as i've never charged for
> any it, i've always just given it away.
>
>  at this point, i'd like to keep writing that sort of stuff for the
> edification of kernel programmers (primarily for newbies, i enjoy that
> kind of writing), but i really need to get something in return to
> justify the time i put into it.  so i suggested a couple possibilities
> on the KN list and, after pondering, i think here's what i'll try.
>
>  at the moment, my current web site is being revamped totally and
> when it's done in a few days, i'm just going to toss up a paypal
> donate button.  other ideas were collating content into actual
> sellable books, or a small monthly subscription service (a la LWN),
> but those models didn't seem to work.
>
>  i'm open to other ideas but, for now, i think what i want to do is
> just add a donation button next to what will be a plethora of kernel
> documentation i've written, and let readers judge for themselves what
> it's worth.  new visitors could start with a one-time contribution of,
> say, 5 or 10 bucks and, sometime down the road as long as i keep
> writing and adding to what's there, they might decide to toss
> something in again, who knows?  as long as i keep writing, some people
> might choose to throw something in on a regular basis.
>
>  i'm mentioning this here since i'm interested in feedback, of
> course.  your thoughts?  how many of you would be a target market for
> that sort of thing?  and if you found the content useful, would you
> consider supporting it?  or, given the vagaries of human nature, do
> you suspect that everyone will simply read, take what they want, and
> leave?
>
>  and is there anyone out there who's tried something like this?  what
> did you do?  did it work?  etc, etc.  i realize this post is again
> more than a little self-serving but i finally decided that i really
> enjoy writing good tutorials and i'd like to keep writing them, but i
> just need to justify the time invested.
>
> rday
>
>
> --
>
> ========================================================================
> Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
>
>            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.
>
> Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
> Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
> ========================================================================
> --
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-- 



Dave Germiquet
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists





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