A (currently theoretical) question concerning a book about the Kolab Server

[Mark Berndt]

On Wednesday 16 July 2008 23:22:17 you wrote:
> Bernhard Reiter <bernhard at intevation.de> writes:
> > Am Donnerstag, 10. Juli 2008 13:33:33 schrieb Gunnar Wrobel:
> >> So I'm wondering if there'd actually be enough financial interest in a
> >> book about Kolab. This is still a completely hypothetical question as
> >> I didn't consider the important parameters of such a project yet. I'd
> >> expect the costs to be somewhere in the range of twenty to thirty
> >> thousand Euros for convinving the publisher to agree to the model with
> >> a non-free print version and a free PDF.
> >
> > There is some interested in documentation,
> > as you can see from the operating system manual in German available from
> > http://kolab.org/documentation.html which a customer of the
> > Kolab-Konsortium contracted.
> >
> > (One of the next steps probably would be to translate this nice manual.)
> >
> >> So right now I'm just looking for some comments to start getting some
> >> ideas and a better grasp of the potential problems that one would need
> >> to solve.
> >
> > There are two problems that I see:
> > a) people just expect the documentation to be there, so it probably will
> > need to be cross financed from other Kolab business.
>
> Yes, for commercial software that is certainly the case. Kolab is kind
> of on a middle ground here. Most of the admins in a Linux environment
> probably know a good deal of software packages that don't provide
> decent documentation so the expectations are probably less high.


You need to provide installation documentation for free.  You might also 
provide some operating instructions also for free.  

I would be happy to pay for a book:

(1) that provides information on how to apply the software (kolab) to business 
situations.
(2) that provides technical information on how the server components work.
(3) how to tune and tweak the server components
(4) how to configure the client software

$50 or $100 is a small price to pay when the software is free.  If you can't 
afford it, or your company can't afford it, you need to find a new job!!! 

>
> > While it is commericially viable for KK to run a large portions of
> > the Kolab community efforts, the level could be better for
> > maintenance and documentation. It will largely depend on how good KK
> > will manage to get business and how fair users are inclined to pay
> > for good service which includes running infrastructure and
> > documentation.
>
> For most other software projects I wouldn't even have dared to mention
> the idea. The fact that KK is successfully running a commercial free
> software product and actively paying for community work is not common
> at all. I think in most cases the only choice is writing stuff and
> give your copyright to the publisher. Which is kind of weird when the
> software you write is free.
>
> I agree that some of this probably has to be cross-financed but I hope
> there might be some companies or people willing to also contribute
> just for the sake of having better documentation.
>
> > b) Technically a good manual must be changed in the moment the software
> > is changed, so it must be part of the software development process. For
> > this the documentation must be part of public infrastructure of the
> > kolab.org community.
>
> I don't see that as a problem but as a requirement. The content
> definitely would need to be available via the wiki, too. And work on
> any texts would take place in a version controlled repository in any
> case.

Extension of a book by a website or wiki would be fine.  I'd expect a new 
release of the book with each major version 2, 3 etc.  and I'd pay for it 
each time.

rgds,

Marko


>
> Cheers,
>
> Gunnar
>
> > Best,
> > Bernhard
> >
> >
> > --
> > Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net       (Free Software
> > Company) Germany Coordinator: fsfeurope.org. Coordinator:
> > www.Kolab-Konsortium.com. Intevation GmbH, Osnabrück, DE; Amtsgericht
> > Osnabrück, HRB 18998 Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr.
> > Jan-Oliver Wagner
> >
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