LWN: Comments on "Book review: Open Advice"

"But the book is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license, which means that the LaTeX source is also available"

steffen780 — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:03:39 +0000

Imho, updating is great - picking particular snapshots for "release" is also great (whether releases like in software, or marking and emphasizing certain versions like the German Wikipedia). I guess I can even see books where it might be sensible to prevent the marking of further releases. Deleting the changelog and VCS history (or set of diffs, or in the case of physical books - destroying the old versions) is not great, which is what was done in 1984.

Book review: Open Advice

nightrose — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 09:14:59 +0000

Yes I think you're right. I assumed the same. I would however have liked to get a yes, just to be able to respond accordingly ;-) Oh well - time's up.

Book review: Open Advice

nix — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:00:43 +0000

Judging from this, he wants to be offensive. Just another sexist troll, ignore him.

Book review: Open Advice

nightrose — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:34:16 +0000

I am not sure what you mean to be honest. You want to see code I've written? Or?

"But the book is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license, which means that the LaTeX source is also available"

bros — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 14:14:45 +0000

> "It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened."

Good point. I should have mentioned, that I'm referring to writing technical books mainly. Now that I think about this more, freezing the book at some point might be a good thing to do too.

Thanks for your comment.

Book review: Open Advice

John_Doe — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:22:50 +0000

Hi Lydia, I would love to be impressed by your great-role-model code. Where can I find it? Thank you.

Role Models And Gender Stereotypes

John_Doe — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:05:48 +0000

> Is this a gender stereotype, that females look for role models to influence them into particular activities, males don’t?

Yes, it is just a gender stereotype.

Now that this is off the table, do you perhaps also have something to contribute on the TECHNICAL ISSUES covered in the book?

Thank you.

Book review: Open Advice

John_Doe — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:57:12 +0000

You, good sir, elaborate upon, and spell out, an incredibly important point that might otherwise be easily overlooked. Thank you!

Book review: Open Advice

John_Doe — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:44:12 +0000

Thank you for having done the political-correctness chores for this day. Women are so amazing, they are just the better men, yada, yada, yada. Now that this is off the table, can we please return to the technical issues that lwn.net was created for? Thank you once more.

"But the book is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license, which means that the LaTeX source is also available"

John_Doe — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:31:46 +0000

> it's getting updated as soon as there is a change

And you consider that an ... advantage? Here's a thought for you:

> "For example, it appeared from The Times of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa. As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened."

Source: http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/3.html

Role Models And Gender Stereotypes

ldo — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:30:19 +0000

Is this a gender stereotype, that females look for role models to influence them into particular activities, males don’t? Because there were never glamorous computer programmers or software geeks on TV or in the magazines or books I read when young (1970s and earlier), there were just the occasional computers themselves, and I was filled with curiosity as to how they worked—of all the technology I was exposed to, they seemed the most magical.

Is that not the kind of thing a girl would do?

"But the book is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license, which means that the LaTeX source is also available"

bros — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:27:58 +0000

> CC-BY-SA doesn't mean source is available, but it's very nice it is available anyway.

Not just nice - it's very important also.

The way how I see publishing industry of the future (hopefully, not that distant one) - openly developing books and getting authors/contributors paid using donation based model - should improve both, the quality of the books and the way how we treat them. If it's open - it's never getting old, it's getting updated as soon as there is a change in the matters described and there is someone willing to make the book being in-sync again.

Kudos to all the authors and especially the editor (usually this role implies a lot of coordination work)!

Book review: Open Advice

nightrose — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:35:14 +0000

It is definitely no coincidence but very intentional. Getting more women into Free Software starts and ends with excellent role-models.
I have the pleasure to work with many amazing women in various Free Software projects and I was psyched when so many of them agreed to be a part of the project.

Cheers
Lydia

Book review: Open Advice

ebirdie — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:03:01 +0000

I just made an observation primarily for myself but willing to share it as a comment. There are quite many women in the authors mosaic on the front page of the Open Advice web-site.

I find that nice, that women this numerous have found interesting things to do, learn and have fun from these projects instead of coding. I know there are women coding and doing many tasks just like men and there are men equal or more to women in the mosaic as well, I just didn't count the genders in the mosaic. I don't mean this comment to be taken as a sexists role model. Somehow the authors mosaic just stroke thru better than Valerie Hanson's name and awereness of her gender in a Kernel section article. As another example, if I remember right, Rebecca Sobol has been working for FOSS via lwn.net since its very early days.

Despite of many acknowledgable women in FOSS, my perception has been that FOSS scenery has had heavy bias to males and I'm not one of those keen on changing the situation by making fuss over it (actually just made with this comment, but will keep my denial mode). The book and the above observation definately changes my perception. I think I will buy the book, not because what I said above about women vs. men in FOSS, but purely because the book review gave incentives.

If someone finds this comment amusing because of its hairline dancing, it is just because I live in a country, where I'm just sick of women being nervously sensitive to counter argument comments they find sexists. I'm almost giving up posting this comment, when I think about that cultural behaviour we have. If conversation between genders is hard in real life at times, online conversations make it to power 2 and conversations over cultural borders might make it even more hazard.

Book review: Open Advice

dlang — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:34:36 +0000

> As a new contributor to a project, you are an invaluable asset not for your knowledge, but for your ignorance.

This is a very important point. The people who initially wrote the software, or have been intimately familiar with it for years can't see the rough spots or gaps in logic that confuse a newcomer.

I remember reading about how HeathKit used to test it's new beginner kits, and the problems that they had recruiting people to do so, not because people weren't interested in doing the work, but rather because they found that after a person had completed a couple of kits they were no longer a beginner, and as such didn't find the mistakes that would confuse a beginner any longer.

someone new starting to work on your project (either by writing code, or by using it and being willing to ask questions about problems they are having) are very valuable resources, exactly because of their ignorance.

"But the book is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license, which means that the LaTeX source is also available"

mlinksva — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:16:51 +0000

CC-BY-SA doesn't mean source is available, but it's very nice it is available anyway.