Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

I see the first paragraph as being "written permission" to "copy distribute and/or modify" the document under some quite specific conditions, and the second as reserving all other rights.

But yeah, it _does_ look strange...

I complained about that, but it was too late to do anything about it. (You don't usually even see those frontmatter pages during the book-writing/editing/proofing process.)

I'm not sure this is the case here, but it might be the difference between the actual text itself and the representation, arrangement, and style of the text as exhibited in the book. This happens in music, where a given Mozart concerto, for example, is in the public domain, but that doesn't mean you can photocopy a given sheet music of the concerto and hand it out; the notes themselves are in the public domain, but the particular typesetting of the specific document is not.

It's obviously a dual-license :)

That is a likely response. But that will push authors who disagree with that to other publishers.

I've noticed a number of technical books developed in an open manner (though usually not under the GPL) that then sold well. There are also a lot of good people around software these days who strongly believe in the ideals of free and/or open source software. Therefore I suspect that insisting on strict copyright control will lose more sales than it gains. But people will make mistakes as they learn this.

Save for time-travel, they can't really do that when they decide to pick up and "publish" a book that's been freely available in electronic form for eight years.

Or it may drive them to offer much lower royalties on books offered that way -- and perhaps only pay them out after the profitability has been established.

That is the standard Apress contract now. Mark made his initial contract with Apress quite a long time ago when it was a far smaller company where special deals could be made.

As the person who commissioned the book at Apress, I can give a little insight into how this came about. I had known Mark for a little while and had seen his (then unfinished) work with DiP. I knew about the license conditions, and spent a good few hours talking with Mark via IRC to convince him to sign up to Apress, let us advance him and essentially pay him to finish it.

I vaguely remember some terms that we agreed which made it favorable for Apress for the first few years, to give apress breathing room to recoup the investment we had made in Mark.

I took this to Gary and the rest of the editorial board, proposed why we should do it and how it could happen, and they agreed. I left not long after, but I understand Mark's book went on to several reprints and it seems new editions - all continuing to make for an excellent book.

I'm proud of bringing the book to Apress, and at the time we felt it was a really good match for a smaller pub to be able to do something a little non traditional and fun. I'm glad to see that it's made lots of people a good deal of money - and I'm sure that Apress don't want to lose the stream from one of their star performers. :)

It is hard though to keep making such unique deals as pubs grow- and, yes Joel - unless you are you, dictating terms isn't really something that most tech authors can do, as the secret is that only a very small percentage of tech books truly sell well. But all it takes is one committed editor who's willing to put their neck on the line for a good product-- and i think dip was one of those. :)

I assume Apress is constrained by their contract with Mark.

Personally I love Faber Finds for their dynamically generated covers http://www.faber.co.uk/faberfinds/

Just to be clear, translations are themselves protected by copyright. So, for example, if you want to read the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote, first published in 2003, you do not have the freedom to select from a wide variety of editions, as described in the parent comment.

I don't entirely understand his explanation though. All I understand is that Mark approves of what happened. I do not understand why it is a good thing and why he wants the world to work like this. He didn't explain that.

The whole logic of what and how you are allowed to charge for in the free software/content world seems completely arbitrary to me, even though I have read so much about it.

...people with other sources of income.

I sort of read this as more BSDish philosophy. One of the fundamental things he cites is the freedom for others to do something you might not like, which, IMO, is more of a BSD notion.

Which is why it's handy to remember that, while copyright licenses can be received as part of a contract, copyright licenses are not in themselves contracts.

You're describing the concept of "consideration" in contract law -- i.e., that each party to an agreement needs to exchange something of value in order for a valid contract to be formed. However, one doesn't need to pay money for something in order for there to be an exchange of value.

Here, the copyright holder (Mark) has clearly given you something of value -- a copy of the text of his book. In exchange, you give the him something of value, as well - your a promise to abide by the terms of the GNU FDL (as referenced on the book's copyright page). Your promise has value to Mark -- if it didn't, he (presumably) would have simply released his work into the public domain, rather than under a GNU license.

The enforceability of open source licenses turns on this issue. The implication of your statement is that an open source license is unenforceable whenever a work is distributed for free (and obviously, this kind of distribution happens all the time). While there were some in the legal community who took this view in the past, the courts have rejected it. Check out the 2008 Federal Circuit decision in Jacobsen v. Katzer (http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf), which turned on the enforceability of the open source Artistic License. Some of the more salient quotes:

- "Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money. The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration, however. There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties."

- "The choice to exact consideration in the form of compliance with the open source requirements of disclosure and explanation of changes, rather than as a dollar-denominated fee, is entitled to no less legal recognition."

"The GPL Is a License, not a Contract" by Pamela Jones

http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/

Basically, if you want to do something that copyright forbids then you can't, unless you get permission. The GPL (and other share-alikes) gives you permission, as long as you obey its rules. Break the rules and you no longer have permission, just as if you were paying a monthly fee for permission and then stopped paying.