Author Topic: Any chance of books on SMF? (Read 5688 times)

ShadoWind · « **on:** February 01, 2012, 07:34:47 AM »

This question is for the behind-the-scenes guys on SMF:

Any chance of any e-books for sale or printed books on how to create a forum using SMF as well as customising one in the future as I feel that there'd be a market for this sort of thing, both for absolute beginners as well as those who have some experience with previous versions of SMF.

Illori · « **Reply #1 on:** February 01, 2012, 07:40:59 AM »

have you read our wiki? most of that stuff is covered in the wiki.

ShadoWind · « **Reply #2 on:** February 01, 2012, 07:46:10 AM »

I never knew there was a Wiki for SMF...

I'll check that out although I still think that there would be people besides myself who would definitely buy a book (even if it's only a e-book) with in-depth instructions on how to get the best out of SMF, especially where Mods are concerned.

-[Reece]- · « **Reply #3 on:** February 01, 2012, 07:48:23 AM »

As Illori mentioned, most things that you would need to read about and how to get the most of SMF can be found within the Wiki.

I see little to no need for an actual book as such.

Illori · « **Reply #4 on:** February 01, 2012, 07:48:36 AM »

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/

i dont think we have the resources to create a book of any type at this time, nor the time or resources to try to sell or distribute it to others.

Ricky. · « **Reply #5 on:** February 01, 2012, 07:50:22 AM »

Unless someone (off the team) writes it as you see with other projects like drupal, wp etc..

mashby · « **Reply #6 on:** February 01, 2012, 08:05:11 AM »

I bet one could take the content currently in the wiki, spend some time formatting it for printing to a book and right before they decide to go to print, the wiki has been updated/added to/edited/removed quite a few times. That's the great thing about the wiki. It's a living document. A book would be dead on arrival.

N. N. · « **Reply #7 on:** February 18, 2012, 07:52:48 AM »

There is no ebook that I know, however nothing is stopping anyone from making one, with the information in the wiki for example, or notes of their own.

Each approach has their strengths, and there may be people preferring one or the other.

Joshua Dickerson · « **Reply #8 on:** March 01, 2012, 10:55:19 PM »

Quote from: Norv on February 18, 2012, 07:52:48 AM

There is no ebook that I know, however nothing is stopping anyone from making one, with the information in the wiki for example, or notes of their own.

I would love to see someone have an interest in writing a book. I have thought about it for years but the fact that online documentation is so much faster to update and our software aims to update faster than a physical book has discouraged me. However, please contact us before writing any books about Simple Machines Forum.

Labradoodle-360 · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2012, 12:15:22 AM »

Indeed, I have also started drafts of a SMF book, although I always gave it up after returning to the Wiki, in the end, I'm really not sure if it's be worth the necessary time to write it.

I do have to disagree with you mashby, if the book was written well, it would not be phased out as quickly as you insinuate.

It would just take a lot of time to write and then expenses to get it published or at least widely available.

AngelinaBelle · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2012, 10:32:23 AM »

It is also possible to take a bunch of wiki pages and make them into a book.
wikibooks has a tool for doing that.

(F.L.A.M.E.R) · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2012, 11:29:45 AM »

Add a module or something similar which allows you export the page as PDF?

That would act as an ebook?

AngelinaBelle · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2012, 12:32:05 PM »

Yeah. Not sure I want to add another wiki extension, though.
Could be easier to just grab some pages, take them to wikibooks, make the book, and delete the pages again.

Labradoodle-360 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:04:22 PM »

Well, this could obviously be discussed, but what is the licensing on the Wiki information? If I were to personally write an actual book and wanted to use *some* of the data on the Wiki, could that be arranged? We can take this PM if it's better discussed in further length with more details. If I ever did venture down that route, I would write the majority of it from scratch, myself. But there most definitely is good information on the Wiki.

AngelinaBelle · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:10:29 PM »

I think this kind of project is open to anyone who wants to do it.

The information that is available on the SMF Wiki is free under a share-alike license. So you can sell information from the wiki. As long as you also make that same information available for free. And make clear to prospective purchasers that said information is also available for free.

As a team member, I think you would have to run it past management whether it is OK for you to sell a support-related book. This is the kind of support the SMF team volunteers offer for free.

Labradoodle-360 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:13:03 PM »

Unfortunately, I do not agree that what I do off of SimpleMachines.org is any of the teams business.

Oldiesmann · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:29:29 PM »

Quote from: AngelinaBelle on March 02, 2012, 02:10:29 PM

I think this kind of project is open to anyone who wants to do it.

The information that is available on the SMF Wiki is free under a share-alike license. So you can sell information from the wiki. As long as you also make that same information available for free. And make clear to prospective purchasers that said information is also available for free.

As a team member, I think you would have to run it past management whether it is OK for you to sell a support-related book. This is the kind of support the SMF team volunteers offer for free.

Why should you have to run that past management? How many people run books on Linux and other Open Source technologies past the management of those projects before publishing them? Unless they wanted us to officially endorse the book, there's no reason why we need to approve of the book's contents prior to its publication. Any issues that arose could easily be dealt with after the publication, and I don't think most of us have time to sit around and discuss whether or not we approve of what someone wants to publish.

Wiki content is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (which really needs to be displayed at the bottom of the page instead of being buried in the wiki's "About" page). Simply put, if anyone wants to use our wiki content, they have to give us credit for it and they have to distribute it under the same license or a similar one.

Theoretically, you can profit from distribution of a copy of the online manual (since that particular license does not prohibit using the work for commercial purposes), but I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that (and, if that's a problem, there's always the "Non-Commercial" version of that license, which prevents people from using the content for commercial purposes).

AngelinaBelle · « **Reply #17 on:** March 02, 2012, 02:50:10 PM »

I was thinking about the "moonlighting" section in the still-under-construction team manual.
A book is not very much like offering support, but I thought I'd just bring it up.

青山素子 · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2012, 03:13:28 PM »

Note that there would probably be an issue with the trademarks used in writing such a book. As the corporation still doesn't have a Trademark Use License (there's an unfinished edition from long ago stuck in the team boards somewhere) making any use of the trademarks unclear, anyone wanting to use the trademarks in this way would need to get approval from the corporation.

Joshua Dickerson · « **Reply #19 on:** March 02, 2012, 03:53:41 PM »

Motoko, that's why I said that if anyone were to want to start a book, they should bring it up to us first.

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Author Topic: Any chance of books on SMF? (Read 5688 times)