Why are we still writing books for profit?
Robert Merton, a well-known sociologist, established a set of norms that characterised the scientific community. One of these norms was communalism — communal ownership and willing sacrifice of intellectual property for the betterment of the field and humanity.
This is a good principle to follow. It furthers humanity’s progress via a method of sharing based on equal say and equal access. It is, at the very least, a respectable and ethically sound principle to aim for.
The open source movement follows this very principle. We, in the web development community, are not strangers to the strengths of open source.
The programming book publication machine, another thing well accepted and prevalent in this community, runs in opposition to the tenets of open source that we should be striving for. Why do we allow this?
In an ideal world — and there is no good argument for heading in any other direction than ideal — knowledge should not have a single barrier to access, including money. Why should we be so accepting of passively discriminating against those without the means to know what we know?
Yes, we live in a world of dollars and euros, but has that stopped the open source movement from gaining popularity and wide acceptance? No. And since when was it acceptable to forgo progress for the sake of an unfair and unequal status quo?
We should continue, in the same fashion as we have with FOSS, by making the idea of paid-for knowledge abhorrant. The best place to start is in what we do day-to-day.
There are always excuses and some of them are reasonable. There are people who make a living selling knowledge. For such people it would be a fight between principle and survival/comfort. We know which one wins. For many of us though we have the luxury of abiding by the principle in the vast majority of what we do.
We should continue to pursue free and equal access to all knowledge.
So, before you write your next book and put it behind a pay-wall, consider the principles you wish to live by.
Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts with me on Twitter. Have a great day!
I look forward to reading your next free book, James.
There’s the thing… it’s no longer books for knowledge. Especially in programming world. Everything you can learn from books is readily available on blogosphere, github, twitter and StackOverflow. The knowledge is already shared. The people who write the books already share the knowledge freely. They speak in conferences and make videos available [for free]. And they also make themselves available for brainpicking and otherwise fun discussions in conference afterparties.
Books are not for knowledge – they are just a concentrated information delivery medium. It’s the easy way out for lazy developers. And lazy people will always be willing to pay for something, so that they don’t have to actually put effort themselves (e.g. typing a query in Google or filtering the endless twitter stream for gold nuggets). And there’s nothing wrong with charging the lazy people for the effort someone else has spent to put the knowledge in a condensed, easily digestible format.
*ALL* the research, especially web oriented, is already available in free form – not only free as in beer, but also free as in speech. Unless you want to actually point a finger towards someone I’m not aware of.
There’s a reason why they say “free as in speech” and not “free as in beer”. You may be quite willing to point to open source as the great communist liberator of humanity, but in reality it wouldn’t be adopted if it didn’t provide monetary incentive to do so. Open source helps build huge companies and power the capitalist engine that the “far from ideal” dirty world uses daily. Just ask Google. If FOSS made the idea of paid-for knowledge abhorrent, it would be a hobbyist idea, an ideal followed by a small community. Instead, people willingly pay for open source software all the time. FOSS just doesn’t place restrictions on what you can do. That’s the real issue.
@Jon, Well, I’m not planning one at the moment. I did start one a while ago but I ran out of time/steam – https://j11y.io/stuff/jQueryBookThing/
I’m looking forward to your next free book too, Jon.
@Dominykas,
I actually agree with you here. I can learn all the programming languages I want and I don’t need to buy a book, but that doesn’t change the fact that books exist and people make money off of them. In this post I am questioning the principle. I think the web/programming industry is already miles ahead in the area of information sharing, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t areas where we still insist on getting paid before sharing.
@all, I’m not calling for some great paradigm shift. Many people already write free books and contribute a huge amount to the open web. I am just wondering when paid-for technical books will finally die.
@Domyniaks
I totally agree with you because I found myself in both positions (“lazy” developer and active researcher). Just one thing: you say “lazy”, but sometimes there is really no time to begin the search so a book can save a lot of time & money and, as far as I’m concerned, I think it’s a good deal to pay for it.
@James
The web replicates reality but in another dimension (it’s faster): the same principles of free information etc.. are also available in the non-digital world (for instance, it’s free to learn the principles of gravity observing an object falling if you’re smart & strong-willing enough).
For that, I think it’s best not to say what people should and should not do regarding their production of knowledge. It’s really up to them to decide depending on the situation (there will always be a balance between paid & free as far as law, the State and too-good-willing-idealists are not involved). As for the “ideal” part that you quote, I come from Italy where “ideal” have always had bad results in history when applied to laws and to what one should or should not do etc… But I totally agree with you on the principle that, from my point of view, should stay as a point of view and no more.
Why should “paid books” die?
Should all published music die, and we only listen to live and steamed music?
Yes there is a lot of really good free information on the net. But a book has the advantage of “focus”. And a LOT of work goes into creating a book. Some of the “new wave” publishers do a really good job of making this work available at a reasonable price (O’Reilly “deal of the day”). As with many forms of publishing the authors mainly do not get rich writing a book, for many it’s like “why climb a mountain?”.
So if we still write books, then we still need editors, proof readers, graphic artists (if illustrations are involved), feed back mechanisms to follow on editions…
BTW. Personally I can usually get information I require from a book a lot faster that I ever can from searching the net. I am on an hourly rate, so for me the cost of a book is negligible, it’s the time to acquire it that is the problem.
@Edoardo, agreed. Please understand that while my post’s content may suggest otherwise, I would never force my opinion on someone else. I carry my principles as mere points of view, but I do believe in the power of words to influence/convince others. Voluntarism ftw.
@bibilophile,
No, not necessarily. That is a completely different area. Music is art.
I was referring to non-artistic technical works only. I am not saying books should die.
I am saying that I believe it’s wrong to charge money for knowledge. That’s all.
@James
Hmmm… music is art, code is technical? Well, also music has a very technical part (as painting, and everything that is – or maybe were – commonly referred as “art”) and what you catch is only melody and maybe a meaning that “you like”.
Why coding is not an art? There is an important technical part but the overall result is just like a symphony that someone who is not skilled enough to understand “likes” or not.
Normally art has a part of knowledge (the project), one of strength (the tech part) and one of beauty (the external result)… My point is: I think coding is an art, and if you think art is eligible to be payed then I think also a coding book can be. And, as always, let the artist decide whether or not he/she should or shouldn’t be payed for his/her work (but we totally agree on that 😉 ).
Interesting discussion though…
“Why are we still writing books for profit?” => Because there are people that are willing to pay for them
Not sure where you want to go with your demonstration as you well said that everything is already available on the web. In one hand you say that everybody can read tons of different blogs, reviews, scientific publications from the MIT of Berkley or any other university in the world, on the web about any subject they want and by doing so, learn for free. On the other hand you say that tech books should be free for people being able to read them if they couldn’t afford them otherwise (which I agree with).
Can’t people that don’t want to pay for a book read on the web, and people that want to pay for a book pay for it? Don’t see the harm here. And authors still get remuneration.
I, personally, do both. I spend a lot of time reading tech blogs, book reviews, research publications, etc. But I personally can’t read more than a few pages on a screen as I find v. annoying to read a long text on a screen. So if I want to dig more on a particular subject, I buy a book (which are *usually* written in a more easy way to understand than being just raw, on a blog). What if you want to read while travelling and you don’t have a WiFi connection or better you don’t have any smart phone nor tablet.. then books are your friends.
But that leads to talk about the medium, the format, and this is a different topic..
You’re also free to buy the book, read it, learn from it, and then donate it to a library or any charity shop where people will be able to then buy it for a few quids.
That’s a very deep question you raised here though.
@James “Well, I’m not planning one at the moment. I did start one a while ago but I ran out of time/steam”
I think that’s part of the point. Buying a book isn’t necessarily paying for the knowledge; it’s paying for the time and “steam” it took to produce it. Paying someone to spend the time researching and writing it down may also bring the information to the public faster than waiting for a volunteer to “get around to it.”
I have a similar relationship with news. On a day-to-day basis, I consume only free or advertiser-supported news. But I also like to buy a news magazine every couple of weeks to get a more considered, better-researched, more in-depth understanding of what’s going on in the world.
I think both free and paid media have a role to play in the dissemination of knowledge and a healthy market for both provides more choices.
@Dominykas “It’s the easy way out for lazy developers. And lazy people will always be willing to pay for something, so that they don’t have to actually put effort themselves…”
I wouldn’t call it lazy. Different people learn better in different ways, just as some people can code while listening to music. For me, the more effort and concentration I’m prepared to give to learning something, the more likely I am to pick up a book.
@Edoardo, yes, I admit there is a crossover. While coding could be said to be an art I think the more technical aspects of it and what is usually inside programming books is not art. Many books just re-iterate the documentation in a cleaner and more understandable form.
@Tanguy,
Yes, that’s true. But that gets us nowhere. It’s like saying:
It’s missing the point… And it’s a circular argument.
I agree with you. There is choice. People have a variety of ways to get information, many of them free. Even with this fact, is it not at least reasonable to be opposed to the other type of information — that which you must pay for? Collective efforts would be better spent proliferating open and free information than selectively choosing who gets to learn what. I am opposed to paid-for knowledge. The fact that there are alternatives does not sway my opposition.
@Tom, you’re thinking in terms of the market and compensation==dedication. Me not finishing a book does not prove either argument. I am but a mere nothing compared to the idea and principle that I’m trying to put across in this post…
Might there be more to human motivation than the lure of compensation? Look at all the free information already out there.
@James
I understand your point and I can’t help but agree with it, but I don’t know where it can lead in economical terms, given that the economy is driven by capitalism.
If the book is free, where does the money come from to publish it? Publishing a pdf on the web is far easier and cheaper than publishing a book and put it on every libraries of a country..
Would the free price system be a solution? People would pay the amount they want when buying books. From where I am standing I can’t say.
James, you definitely have some good ideas about what can make our world a better place. But because of who controls things in this world, what you’re suggesting is not only impossible, but it’s also impractical and self-defeating for the majority of us.
I think John McCrae of the rock band CAKE hit the nail on the head when asked about music piracy. He said:
Comment by @Tanguy is correct. If you want to make knowledge free, then you have to make publishing free. If you make publishing free, then you have to make printing presses free. If you make printing presses free, then you have to make chopping down of trees free. And all the employees that work for those different aspects of printing/publishing would likewise need to work for free. And if they’re going to do that, then the grocery store down the street has to give their food away for free, so those free workers can feed themselves and their families. And the farm that provides the food for the grocery store has to give its produce away for free. I could go on for hours here.
The point is (as @Tanguy said), the powers that be in this world have decided that capitalism rules.
Really, while your post does suggest a possible alternative to the spread of knowledge, it provides an even clearer indicator that capitalism is far from ideal.
For the record, I agree with you, but I’ll take it a step further, in line with McCrae’s statement: The world should be based on trade of skills and services, where “money” is not involved at all. So I’ll gladly start promoting the spread of free knowledge as soon as I see clear evidence that capitalism is no longer ruling. Because I need to ensure that I can feed my family. 🙂
@Louis, I am trying to show that there is no slippery slope to worry about. We’re already on the road to entirely free knowledge. Look at the internet. Look at wikipedia. Look at Khan Academy. Not only is it possible but it’s in existence right now. A free book does not mean a free printing press. It simply means that the printing press is financed from elsewhere, from non-profits for example. And, after all, why print a book if it can be shared online?
When I refer to paid-for technical books I’m referring to a dying breed of information transfer anyway.
So, forgive me, but I don’t understand what you and others mean when you say that you agree but it’s simply not possible. It must be possible because it’s already happening…
@James When I say it’s impossible, I mean that even though it is happening to some extent, it’s a broken model, because it’s happening in the midst of a largely capitalist society. And until capitalism gets out of the way, it will never truly “happen”.
I think if you look throughout history (I’m naive on this point; just guessing), you’ll probably see similar patterns and waves of “free knowledge” movements. Of course, it’s totally different now with the Internet.
Also, to be honest, I don’t really see what you see when you say it’s already happening. Look at Google for example. They are (ironically) promoting the “free knowledge” and “open source” model. But what is the result? Capitalist gain for Google. Maybe Google is a bad example, and maybe that’s not what you have in mind, but it’s a real example of how even when people promote open source and open knowledge, it is ultimately for capitalist gain.
Nonetheless, whatever the case, this is an important topic and I’m glad you brought it up.
@Edoardo, @Tom – just to clarify – I didn’t say “lazy” is “wrong”. In fact, I became involved in computer stuffs exactly because I’m “lazy” 🙂 But I get where you’re coming from.
To rephrase, it’s not that it’s “lazy” – staying up to date via other means is actually “hard work”. And reading a book or two every so often – that’s the opposite of “hard work”. Now, reading a book every week – now that is “hard work” again – but it’s still removing the “hard work” of filtering the noise. If you read only Good Books, that is.
@James
They’ll “die” when people are no longer willing to pay for them. Thankfully the internet has given all of us a way to share information freely, and hence it’s accessible to those willing to search for it.
I am willing to pay for a technical, knowledge-packed book when 1) it saves me time from having to search and/or 2) I need the information: I’m guaranteed a book will still be there tomorrow, unlike many blogs, titter posts, etc. which can be deleted in an instant. I’ve lost great resources due to authors allowing their web properties to die.
The problem of free information: They are scattered on the whole internet, sometimes hard to find, and second, the quality of these information is not guaranteed. If I want to seriously learn something , I got a book, its well organized , well written, and complete as a whole, get everything from just one place. Its worth to pay for it.
I think the key is you are paying someone for a good portion of their time to cover a subject in a way that is easy to digest. Often when I learn a new language it is much easier to read a well prepared book. They usually will give me real world examples and make less assumptions about my knowledge. Once the feet are wet then the free docs, blog posts and stack overflow all become the only reference needed.
A great example of this was when I started learning opengl. The khronos site has so much information it’s almost dizzying, but blog posts are full of quickly whipped together examples with memory leaks and too little context. A purchase of the red book got me through enough material that I could start utilizing all the other resources around me. This is well worth 30 bucks to me.
In this case there were multiple sources giving me the resources for free but since all the content was prepared in their free time it would have added a lot of time on my end to get started with. Having someone who was financially motivated to make it streamlined for me really paid off. A mix of both worlds is a great thing.
Many programming books which are poorly written by popular authors are behind the pay wall. I realized this in 2010 that there seems to be no need for books anymore as many tutorials online gives you more knowledge compared to books which are written purely on basic concepts with nothing new on table.