Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
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This is a read-only list on gimpusers.com so this discussion thread is read-only, too.
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Monica Kraenzle | 22 Oct 16:06 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Alexandre Prokoudine | 22 Oct 16:15 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Karine Delvare | 22 Oct 16:20 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Torsten Neuer | 22 Oct 16:48 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Monica Kraenzle | 22 Oct 16:51 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Alexia Death | 22 Oct 20:48 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Robert Krawitz | 23 Oct 02:24 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Monica Kraenzle | 23 Oct 03:22 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | David Odin | 23 Oct 08:15 |
| Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org | Monica Kraenzle | 23 Oct 04:34 |
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
Hi Roman, Hi Sven.
Let me first say thank you for being so kind to be so offensive when somebody is contacting you.
As a result we just received a "customers review" not from a customer but from some member of this great group, calling himself "Olivier Lecarme's".
He posted a 1-star-rating:
"This is not offiicial at all!,
As said by the GIMP chief developer: "It's a somewhat unprofessional approach to print and sell the user manual without getting in contact with the authors beforehand, isn't it? And then you put "Susan A. Jones" as the author. Who is that? I don't remember having seen that name among the contributors to the GIMP user
manual."
This book prints a manual considered by its authors as not yet publishable, and completely obsolete with regards to the current version of GIMP.
Don't buy it!"
Many thanks!
We simply printed a complete officially to the public released manual which do include a full GNU license to freely distribute this document under GNU terms - and we correctly printed the names of all authors and contributors in the printed book. We fully complied with the GNU license terms which you gave away with releasing this manual officially. There was no intention at all to let it look that anybody else wrote it. And this manual is no "secret", "unfinished", "unauthorized" or whatever document. (Gimp manuals will never be final as they will be always under development as the software itself.)
It really sounds funny that you are releasing software and manuals to the public with GNU licenses to freely distribute them privately and commercially but at the end you don't want people to use the license but to ask you before.
Amazon listed "Author" incorrectly instead of the correct word "Editor" and we will try to force them to correct it.
But as this is now the result of getting in contact with the gimp developers and the doc team let me just say this: - If you are giving something away with a GNU licence to redistribute = don't complain that publisher do it and don't complain that we don't ask for it as it is already permitted within the licence. - If this is the german menthality and the way the gimp community here works = You should better reconsider to not release software and document with GNU licences but sell it instead.
Why you are releasing manuals with GNU license? (I think you know what this license says.)
I intended to clarify the misunderstanding in my previous post in the doc team list (see my post below so that everybody knows what the facts are). But if this is the result if someone is contacting gimp guys (late but with the intention to collaborate, to clarify misunderstandings and to do it better in the future) I simply say goodbye for now to Gimp and their developers as you don't take your commitment to "free" GNU licenses seriously.
And finally, my previous message to the doc team list, posted some hours ago:
Hi Roman,
I still think there is a kind of misunderstanding.
1. Susan A. Jones is the penname used for the editor of this book used to set it up at Amazon. The term editor can create confusion for people less familiar with English, because it is used in various senses in the publishing industry. For this book the editor has technically prepared the manuscripts for this publication to be printed as a physical book. In the publishing industry it is a very common way to name a book editor and does not violate any author rights.
2. Susan A. Jones is in NO way mentioned within the manual book. Not on the book cover and not inside the book (but Amazon used the word "Author" in their listing instead of using the wording "Editor" and I made the same mistake in my first message here on the message board when I asked for adding the book.) If you take a look at Amazon you will find thousands of book pages where the editor name is mentioned instead of the author names.
3. There is no Author mentioned on the cover. All authors are correctly mentioned within the manual book. Inside the book there is the page called "Preface, Users Manual Authors and Contributors" Quoting this page:
"User Manual Authors and Contributors:
Content Writers William Skaggs, C´edric Gémy, Julien Hardelin, Raymond Ostertag, Mel Boyce, Daniel Egger, Róman Joost,
Oliver Ellis
Graphics, Stylesheets Jakub Steiner, Róman Joost, Daniel Egger
Build System, Technical Contributions Sven Neumann, Michael Natterer, Henrik Brix Andersen, Daniel Egger, Thomas Schraitle,
Chris Hübsch, Axel Wernicke
Project Maintenance Róman Joost, Daniel Egger"
To make that more evident and obvious we will update the book product description with adding all author names within the description as listed in the manual. (These are different names as on there are now on the website you sent me the link.) I will also try to force Amazon to correct their wrong wording on their product page (Editor instead of Author).
I already signed up with the DocList and I hope we can discuss their the possibility of publishing an updated manual. Thanks,
Monica
__________________
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Monica Kraenzle wrote:
- If you are giving something away with a GNU licence to redistribute = don't complain that publisher do it and don't complain that we don't ask for it as it is already permitted within the licence.
This is hilarious. You remind me one very unprofessionally written article whose author bashed Oxygen icon theme artists for asking people not to distribute it until KDE4 is out. See, GIMP manual is by no means complete and doesn't even cover features of the current stable version.
Open source is about cooperation. This is something you really need to consider, IMHO.
Alexandre, *not* saying this on behalf of the team
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
Le Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:06:14 -0300, Monica Kraenzle a écrit :
It really sounds funny that you are releasing software and manuals to the public with GNU licenses to freely distribute them privately and commercially but at the end you don't want people to use the license but to ask you before.
It doesn't look like you understand the difference between "legally possible" and "good idea". It's too bad you printed a book of bad quality just because you didn't contact the documentation team first. It could have been great to prepare a top-quality version of the manual with the team and release it as a book.
It's exactly the same when people take GIMP source code, brand it "MyPhotoshop" or whatever, and sell it. Then buyers complain that there are bugs - of course, by the time they buy it, most bugs are fixed and new features have appeared, but they will never see that. So, this is legally allowed, but the seller shouldn't be surprised when the development team isn't very happy about the situation.
Karine
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
Am Mittwoch, 22. Oktober 2008 16:20:20 schrieb Karine Delvare:
Monica Kraenzle a écrit :
It really sounds funny that you are releasing software and manuals to the public with GNU licenses to freely distribute them privately and commercially but at the end you don't want people to use the license but to ask you before.
The right to use and the right to publish does not free a publisher from the responsibility of ensuring a quality end-product. From what I have read here, this responsibility has be entirely neglected in this case.
It doesn't look like you understand the difference between "legally possible" and "good idea". It's too bad you printed a book of bad quality just because you didn't contact the documentation team first. It could have been great to prepare a top-quality version of the manual with the team and release it as a book.
It's exactly the same when people take GIMP source code, brand it "MyPhotoshop" or whatever, and sell it. Then buyers complain that there
Not quite exactly the same, as the title of such a piece of software would be different. But in the current case, the title is "Gimp User's Manual", i.e. it is directly related to the Gimp project and the finger will point at all members of the developing team and any contributors if there are bugs.
This is the main point why people here are so upset for not being asked before publishing the book in the first place. The people here do want to produce quality software and quality documentation as well.
Any editor of a published book that is compiled from articles of different authors (this is what also applies to the GUM) should read through those articles carefully and clear out any questions that might arise from the differences between the article (i.e. the documentation in this case) and the topic (i.e. the actual product in the current stable version) before the final work is going to be published. This is even more true with the Gimp, where the stable product and the documentation are not kept in sync (since keeping them in sync would slow down the software development).
just my 2cc
Torsten
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
It really sounds funny that you are releasing software and manuals to the public with GNU licenses to freely distribute them privately and commercially but at the end you don't want people to use the license but to ask you before.
It doesn't look like you understand the difference between "legally possible" and "good idea". It's too bad you printed a book of bad quality just because you didn't contact the documentation team first. It could have been great to prepare a top-quality version of the manual with the team and release it as a book.
It's exactly the same when people take GIMP source code, brand it "MyPhotoshop" or whatever, and sell it. Then buyers complain that there are bugs - of course, by the time they buy it, most bugs are fixed and new features have appeared, but they will never see that. So, this is legally allowed, but the seller shouldn't be surprised when the development team isn't very happy about the situation.
Karine
Karine,
I understand that very well. And I agree that we might have better contacted them before and that it wasn't the best idea to take the license serious as it is a officially released manual edition.
But I also offered to talk about releasing an updated second edition and to collaborate.
You should consider that there will be "never" a great completed up-to-date gimp manual as at the time one would be nearly completed the next gimp version will be already released ... and once again ...
This manual might not include all the latest feature especially of the new release but overall it is very well done, very well explained, good looking and with 700+ pages very helpful for beginners. And there is the information included that all manual updates for newer versions could be found by joining the latest online help on the gimp website. If the team would love to have an up-to-date fully completed manual this will never happen in real-time.
But now to go to the book page and give a bad rating to say this is bad quality and the gimp developers say this is not an official manual is not the finest way.
Do you consider this as fair?
Not only to us but also to all the authors who worked on that version?
We had to bad intention at all.
__________________
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
On Wednesday 22 October 2008 17:51:02 Monica Kraenzle wrote:
But I also offered to talk about releasing an updated second edition and to collaborate.
Open source is all about collaboration. Jumping out of the bushes and demanding support is not it.
But now to go to the book page and give a bad rating to say this is bad quality and the gimp developers say this is not an official manual is not the finest way.
If documentation team has not reviewed what you are going to print with that goal, printing, in mind, it can hardly be called official. That and the attribution is are in my humble opinion the things that have stroked the community the wrong way. Attribution is the closest thing for reward the contributors get for their effort and tho they cant demand it, they do expect it as part of good manners. If attribution as individuals is not practical, then as a collective through a name the collective recognizes.
I do not think the bad rating giver is even a contributor. It can be anybody who has read this list. A list that is indexed by google quite fast through several list archives. Sven can hardly be blamed for expressing his opinion, that most there seem to share.
Do you consider this as fair?
I had nothing to do with the rating, but... Well,I do think it is fair. Support of a community is a great thing to have, but it needs to be earned by doing right by the community and not only by the letter of the law or at least by accepting and acknowledging your mistakes. So far you have done neither, only complained.
Not only to us but also to all the authors who worked on that version?
Id suspect the authors are not offended - it is by a "Sarah", isn't it...
We had to bad intention at all.
Neither do any of us when pointing out to you what was/is exactly wrong with your approach. It's up to you to decide what you do, now that you know the sentiment of the community.
-- Alexia
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
From: Monica Kraenzle
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:51:02 -0300
But now to go to the book page and give a bad rating to say this is bad quality and the gimp developers say this is not an official manual is not the finest way. Do you consider this as fair? Not only to us but also to all the authors who worked on that version?
We had to bad intention at all.
From my experience (as the project lead for Gutenprint), it *is* a
real problem when well-intentioned distributors use beta (or old) versions of our software, or make changes without discussing them with us. We've had a few cases of this happen, and the result is that users yell at us for something we didn't do. I've fired off a few angry emails of my own to distributors over things like that.
Yes, the license allows you to do what you want, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to grab a snapshot and publish it as a book, or to distribute it with changes without clearly pointing out the local customizations.
In this particular case, it would have saved a lot of hard feelings (not to mention a good bit of work on your part) to have asked about this before publishing it. If nothing else, you would at least have known what version to publish.
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
The users manual version we used is for gimp 2.4, dated December 2007.
I have uploaded a reduced pdf to show the cover and the interior pages: http://www.maxishare.net/en/file/8416/gimp-manual-2-4-reduced-pdf.html
Basicly it's nothing else than a printed version of the electronic version (and it's NOT mass-distributed). The only customizations we made is creating a cover and formatting this electronic manual to a printed manual. All authors and contributors are credited. License terms and information about what version as well as a link to the gimp.org site for software and manual updates etc. are included.
As soon as there would be available an updated 2.6 manual we could update the edition as well.
Many others are distributing CD's with gimp software versions from the website and are allowed to do so (surely these are also not always the latest software versions without any bugs) and we printed the electronic manual on paper ... __________________
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
We have just submitted an updated, more accurate product description to Amazon which should appear live soon:
"718-pages paperback-book print edition of the electronic manual, written and released by the Gimp-Documentation team. The ultimate Users Manual for GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), the Photo and image Software for Photo Retouching, Image Composition and Image Authoring. The GIMP software program is available for free at www.gimp.org .
WRITTEN by the GIMP-Documentation Team. Content Writers: William Skaggs, C'edric Gémy, Julien Hardelin, Raymond Ostertag, Mel Boyce, Daniel Egger, Róman Joost, Oliver Ellis. Formatted into book print version by editor Susan A. Jones
This manual is written by the Gimp-Documentation Team, constantly developed and updated over years and officially released to the public. Additional new Gimp 2.6 features are not included yet in this 718-pages book but updates on these new features as always can be found at www.gimp.org ." __________________
Request to include Gimp Manual Book at Gimp.org
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 10:22:11PM -0300, Monica Kraenzle wrote:
The users manual version we used is for gimp 2.4, dated December 2007.
I have uploaded a reduced pdf to show the cover and the interior pages: http://www.maxishare.net/en/file/8416/gimp-manual-2-4-reduced-pdf.html
Basicly it's nothing else than a printed version of the electronic version (and it's NOT mass-distributed).
Basically, it is a _black_and_white_ printed version, which make most screenshots completly useless, at least that pdf is a B&W version.
The only customizations we made is creating a cover and formatting this electronic manual to a printed manual. All authors and contributors are credited. License terms and information about what version as well as a link to the gimp.org site for software and manual updates etc. are included.
Does that really allow you to put a copyright for the 2008 year on page 4?
As soon as there would be available an updated 2.6 manual we could update the edition as well.
Repeat after me: "as soon as there would be available an updated 2.6 manual we WON'T publish a printed edition, but we will ASK the documentation team what to do, since we don't want to repeat the same errors again and again".
Many others are distributing CD's with gimp software versions from the website and are allowed to do so (surely these are also not always the latest software versions without any bugs) and we printed the electronic manual on paper ...
Yes, they are allowed to do so, some are even contacting us beforehand, and all of them have to distribute the real official package (which is the tar.gz source package, and not an svn or unstable release), and none of them asked us to advertise their CD on our website.
Again, I'm speaking in my name, and _not_ in the name of the gimp team (or I would have chosen another email address)
Cheers,
DindinX
