rms@mit-prep (07/12/85)
From: Richard M. Stallman <rms@mit-prep> I now have to decide how to print the first edition of the Emacs manual, given that there will probably be another edition in September. I'd like to see whether there will be enough demand for it to be worth while to use offset printing. Can you tell me: If the manual costs $10, how many copies would you (and your organization if you are responsible for that) buy? How many if it costs $5? Note that the tex sources will be available; you can print your own manuals if you want.
mikem@wisc-stat.arpa (07/13/85)
From: Mike Meyer <mikem@wisc-stat.arpa> $5 or $10 doesn't make a difference. If the manual is under 100 pages (unlikely) we would print our own from the Tex sources, otherwise I'd buy 4. (p.s. I would opt for expensive manuals as a way of putting money into the GNU project. Its very hard to "donate" university money, but I can buy over-priced manuals. ) --Mike
root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (07/14/85)
Well, I sent a message to this effect to RMS directly but now that someone has suggested upping the price of the Emacs manual to raise $$ for GNU I'll publicize: First, your heart is in the right place, this is not a flame, just an opinion. I find a big nuisance to students here are all the manuals and their costs. I have worked very hard to try to keep this down for my students (I generally teach the intro C/UNIX course in CS here, so I see it, easy to run over $100 for basic manuals for just this course and *then* come the texts (K&R, K&P, about $50 or so.) Granted these things are useful for years, let's have a little sympathy (I know *I* had to raise my own $$ for books as a student, it was tough sometimes.) I don't think one student here has ever bought the CCA emacs manual, it's just too much with the UNIX manuals etc. They manage without it, and probably not as well (on-line docs, public copy in the room, tribal info), which I feel bad about cuz I am a manual hound. Ok, so two good conflicting ideas: The only possible resolution I could think of would be a "deluxe" and "student" edition, either with different amounts of info or just different binding (eg. one could just be a plastic wrapped pack of three-hole and the other would be professionally bound.) But that's a real administrative hassle to get started and I bet most people would just buy the cheaper one. Or maybe there are just better ways to raise $$ that affect the 'right' people most. Or maybe this isn't an issue: rms? -Barry Shein, Boston University
tomk@ur-laser.uucp (Tom Kessler) (07/15/85)
How about some sort of "bulk educational discount". Maybe if you
order 50 or more copies for students in a course you are teaching
you pay $5 instead of $10 and get 50 copies bound as cheaply as
possible. Well it's just an idea.
--
--------------------------
Tom Kessler {allegra |seismo }!rochester!ur-laser!tomk
Laboratory for Laser Energetics Phone: (716)- 275 - 5101
250 East River Road
Rochester, New York 14623tp@ndm20 (07/15/85)
On the case of students, how about a student discount? I work for a company and
can easily pay $50, maybe $75 for manuals (probably want about 5). For students,
$5 would be good. I think that many (most?) would pay the higher price to help
support Gnu. How about this: sell the manuals for $5, $10, $20, and $40. All the
same manual, but let people pay as much as they want ($5 version only for
students though). Then you can show the appropriate price list to your boss to
justify the cost of the manual. Another idea is quanitity breaks, $40 for 1 copy,
$20 each for 2-4, $10 for 5-15, $5 for 16 or more. Then the students will just
place a group order to get the high quanitity discount.
(Of course, my buying 5 manuals is dependent on whether I can ever get my hands
on the program in the first place, and whether or not it runs on an HS-20
(Masscomp) :-)
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
Usenet: ...!{allegra|ihnp4}!convex!smu!ndm20!tp
CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu
ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPApedz@ctvax (07/16/85)
My suggestion for the student problem is to have the university make cheap copies for the students. Since the code is public, I would assume the manual would not have a copyright either. This makes it easier for local copies to be made. (I think you can make copies for classwork anyway.) So why not sell the manuals for a reasonable price for most people, and then those places with a heart can make cheap copies available to their students. The only suggestion I have is to make a loose leaf version available for those places who are going to make copies so save copying hassles but that is fairly minor. Perry pedz@ctvax
john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) (07/17/85)
At $5 a shot, I'd probably buy a GNU manual before I port GNU emacs to our system (not likely to be soon, because UNOS is much closer to SYSTEM V than to 4.?BSD). At $10, I'd likely wait until after. However, in either case, $10 is certainly reasonable for the amount of information, and $5 immensely so. [ Random thought of the day: How about writing an ITS-compatible TECO for UNIX, so we can bag this LISP-fakery?-) I've even got a TECO manual, its only an inch and a half thick...] -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA I have a bad habit of thinking of tremendously witty .signatures just before I fall asleep. If I kept paper by my bed, you'd probably be laughing uncontrollably at this very moment. Sorry.
paul@osu-eddie.UUCP (Paul Placeway) (07/18/85)
[do you feel lucky, bug?] In article <230@frog.UUCP> john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) writes: >[ Random thought of the day: How about writing an ITS-compatible TECO for >UNIX, so we can bag this LISP-fakery?-) I've even got a TECO manual, its >only an inch and a half thick...] >-- >John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 >...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA Better yet, make the changes needed to GNUemacs so it can be ported to ITS & TOPS-20. Let's PLEASE give up this TECO nonsense. Paul Placeway, Ohio State CIS Dept., Columbus OH ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!paul, paul@ohio-state (csnet) "it looks like line noise; it must be TECO..."
MLY@MIT-MC.ARPA (07/19/85)
From: Richard Mlynarik <MLY@MIT-MC.ARPA> Path: mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!spuxll!abnji!u1100a!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!ctvax!pedz Yow! Newsgroups: net.emacs Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 12:10:00 EDT My suggestion for the student problem is to have the university make cheap copies for the students. Since the code is public, I would assume the manual would not have a copyright either. This makes it easier for local copies to be made. (I think you can make copies for classwork anyway.) So why not sell the manuals for a reasonable price for most people, and then those places with a heart can make cheap copies available to their students. The only suggestion I have is to make a loose leaf version available for those places who are going to make copies so save copying hassles but that is fairly minor. Perry pedz@ctvax Everybody is free to make copies of the manual --- the question is what the cost of manuals printed and shipped by RMS should be. The manual, like the code, IS copyrighted, so that the sort of commercial slime who have been so willing to illustrate their small-mindedness via this newsgroup don't try to porn it off as theirs. The following is the copyright notice from the manual source, which is now distributed with every copy of GNU Emacs. All you need is TeX (another wonderful free program) and a laser printer (not-quite-so-cheap.) Botex is a TeX macro package which RMS wrote. Printer output is loose-leaf. (I just got a copy of the manual by running our Dover's output though a photocopier) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- \input botex @c Copyright (C) 1985 Richard M. Stallman. @ignore Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to process this file through Tex and print the results, provided the printed document carries copying permission notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual). Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions in the preceding paragraph, provided that the section entitled ``The GNU Manifesto'' is included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, provided that the section entitled ``The GNU Manifesto'' is included, either in English exactly as in the original, or in a translation approved by the author. @end ignore
root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (07/20/85)
Ok, the suggestion that universities set themselves up to provide their own copies gives me an idea: How about requiring (or at least 'suggesting') a $N royalty to Gnu Inc. (?) Here at BU we just usually use a local (private) copy center for such things. I'd just tell them the situation, come to a price and ask them to send the difference. I think they charge about 3 or 4c a page, so a 200 page manual for $10 or $12 would have a few dollars royalty worked in, sounds reasonable to me. Also distributes the administration/nuisance. (Obviously I have to assume they are honest, I think they are, too much business at stake if nothing else.) -Barry Shein, Boston University Of course, you definitely lose the volume savings of offset.