For visitors arriving here from somewhere other than the Stripes Book web site, a little background is in order: read this blog post, then hurry back here. We'll save you a seat.
This is a hot-button topic for me, so I'm dusting off my own blog to defend Freddy and his hungry baby (mostly because I couldn't get the BBCode to give me proper line breaks, resulting in this being a Giant Blob o' TextTM and gave up trying)
So, I purchased the Stripes Book -- both versions. It's well written, it's funny in places, is eminently useful, quite "pragmatic," and the Father of Stripes shares his wisdom in numerous side-bars. Thank you for the hard work, Freddy -- and Tim and PragProg folks.
In my case, I'm actively building a web app using Stripes, so the book is already dog-eared, written-in and care-worn. It's my first JSP/Servlet/MVC framework app. Luckily, I had the luxury of choosing the app stack. I looked at a bunch of Struts books (easy to find at B-and-N or Borders) and at as many on-line references as I could find for Stripes, Spring MVC, Tapestry (the folks at Apache stay busy, don't they?), JSF, etc.
Based on Stripes' own "pragmatic" approach, and information gleaned from the web (including the Stripes Book site), I selected Stripes and bought both the hard copy and electronic versions (for easy copy/paste) of the book. I haven't looked back (a tribute as much to Tim Fennell as to Freddy).
As for my feelings on the matter, I won't even share my legally-purchased copy of the e-book with anyone, though I've lent the hard-copy a couple times. I know how much work it is to write a book. I've read enough prefaces and dedications to get it: it's arduous, lonely, marriage-breaking, offspring-alienating work. Any pittance the publishing industry sees fit to throw in the direction of an author doesn't begin to cover the "losses" incurred in the writing -- and, because it generally is a pittance, every little bit is significant.
Personally, I didn't want to contribute to any loss of income to Freddy and his family (have you priced diapers lately?). The real problem is not that you "walk away" with a copy of an e-book, but that you walk away with a copy, and then your friends get your copy and their friends get their copies and.... In six-degrees-of-separation the entire world has a free copy. Now, Freddy can't feed his baby or buy her diapers, and he spends every waking minute writing and sending C-and-D letters from a pretend law-firm (he can't afford to feed his baby, how can he afford an army of attorneys???)
That said, I appreciate and applaud Freddy for his nurturing and positive attitude. At the same time, I categorically condemn anyone who believes it's OK to take food out of Freddy's baby's mouth (and diapers off her little bottom) just because he believes pirating an e-book is the same as flipping the pages of a book at Borders. It's not the same. (OK, OK. I admit it: "taking food out of the kid's mouth" is a bit histrionic -- but have you priced diapers lately???... ;-)
Here's the deal: after browsing a book at Borders, you leave it behind - or face legal charges for shoplifting. When you pirate an e-book, you have it lock-stock-and-barrel, free-and-clear, in toto. You get to benefit from Freddy's 15-months away from his wife and baby girl, toiling into the wee hours, without so much as a thank-you-sir.
Funny thing is, PragProg makes it very easy to review the book without stealing it. PragProg has three [pdf] full [pdf] chapters [pdf] online. When you buy the e-book, there are versions for the Kindle as well as for the iPhone. All of these are included with a single purchase of the e-book.
Most of us make enough money that about one hour's salary (give or take) pays for the hard-copy (the e-book alone is even more affordable) -- and that book pays you back in hours-saved many times more than it costs to buy. Freddy paid with 15 months of his life. You can't pony up one hour in return?
So, at worst it's stealing, plain and simple, and at best it's being damned inconsiderate to a fellow programming comrade-in-arms.
On the other hand, there are those who say free distribution leads to improved sales. I guess we can watch the numbers: (Nbooks sold) / (NStripes downloads) should keep a pretty linear correlation. Ideally, (NStripes downloads * C) ~ (Nbooks sold * C), commensurate with sales to date. Until more books are published, this one's the only game in town. So, in the absence pirating, the correlation should hold pretty closely -- at least until the market is saturated with Stripes books. If the "free distribution leads to improved sales" hypothesis holds, then sales will increase faster than downloads. Time will tell.
Thanks for a great book Freddy, and for a great framework, Tim.
Now, you little pirates, you just run on over to PragProg.com and pay for your stolen e-books (just $23.00 US -- you probably spent twice that on pizza and beer this weekend). No one will know you're paying for a pirated book, but maybe you'll sleep better tonight.
Last thought, then you're free to go (and kudos to you for sticking it out this long): a pox on the handful of brigands who put their legally-purchased e-books on file sharing networks. The folks at PragProg should get the signatures from those books and terminate the accounts of the perpetrators -- or bill them $23 for each copy that was downloaded from a bit torrent seed.
Thanks for listening.
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