OK, yesterday I signed contracts from Addison, Wesley, Longman for a
book on PostgreSQL.  I got approval from Marc, Thomas, Vadim, and Tom
Lane.  I also sent them a resume which was approved by the core group.

I have redesigned the outline because some of the chapters were too
long, and have written about 30 pages so far.  With the missing
chapters, it comes to 64 pages.  I am waiting for some text from the
publisher, just stating that the book is being written under contract
for them, and I will make the book available in PDF and HTML formats on
the web as soon as possible.

I plan to add the PostgreSQL manual pages as an appendix to the book.

Yes, I am being payed for the book, at some future date.  I realize
other developers are using PostgreSQL in their work or in consulting,
but this is a much more public involvement.  All I can say is that I
have always been ready to throw money into the PostgreSQL project, and
will continue to do so when possible.

Can't wait for everyone to see it.  Shouldn't be too long now.  I will
post when it is ready.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, where do people want the PDF and HTML files?  My idea is to update
them every night.

FYI, I just cleaned up my PDF version.  Seems that ps2pdf requires me to
use Latin1 font encoding, or all my fonts in the PDF file are bitmapped
fonts and not spline/curved fonts.  This is mentioned in the ps2pdf
manual pages.  I just never realized the LyX's default encoding is ASCII
and not Latin1.  

Bitmapped fonts don't matter if you print out the PDF, but if you view
it on the screen, Adobe Acrobat Reader showed the text looking terrible.
Ghostview was much better at rendering the bitmapped fonts, but I am
sure there are many people who want to view the PDF file with Acrobat,
so I have that fixed.  xpdf couldn't render the bitmapped fonts either. 
I have switched to Palatino, and upgraded to Alladin Ghostscript
5.94beta, so the PDF problems people reported with the previous PDF
should be fixed now.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Tue, 19 Oct 1999 18:20:52 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us>
book status
Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Yes, I am being payed for the book, at some future date.  I realize
> other developers are using PostgreSQL in their work or in consulting,
> but this is a much more public involvement.  All I can say is that I
> have always been ready to throw money into the PostgreSQL project, and
> will continue to do so when possible.

Since you'll be doing the bulk of the work that is specific to the book,
I can't see any reason to object to you being the one getting paid for
it.  Many (most?) of us are using Postgres for work purposes, or
otherwise deriving some kind of personal/corporate/proprietary benefit
from it.  A book project based on Postgres seems no different to me
from the money my company hopes to make from running a Postgres-based
application.  Indeed, this book project is considerably more likely
to return tangible benefit to the Postgres group (in the form of new
users/contributors attracted to the project) than most other ways
people might be using Postgres to make money.

In short, you needn't offer the slightest apology for collecting the
book royalties personally.  From what I've heard of the book-writing
biz, you're unlikely to get rich off it anyway :-(

Since I didn't see any howls of outrage on the mailing list, I imagine
everyone else thinks the same anyway, but if you need some reassurance
these are my two cents.

> BTW, where do people want the PDF and HTML files?  My idea is to update
> them every night.

Stick 'em on the website/ftpsite somewhere under the docs page.  I'd
probably gripe if I found them getting pulled as part of the regular CVS
source module --- those updates are slow enough already --- but if you
want to keep them in CVS I suppose a separate CVS module could be set up.

			regards, tom lane

Wed, 20 Oct 1999 01:11:53 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: [HACKERS] book status 
On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Tom Lane wrote:

> Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> > Yes, I am being payed for the book, at some future date.  I realize
> > other developers are using PostgreSQL in their work or in consulting,
> > but this is a much more public involvement.  All I can say is that I
> > have always been ready to throw money into the PostgreSQL project, and
> > will continue to do so when possible.
> 
> Since you'll be doing the bulk of the work that is specific to the book,
> I can't see any reason to object to you being the one getting paid for
> it.  Many (most?) of us are using Postgres for work purposes, or
> otherwise deriving some kind of personal/corporate/proprietary benefit
> from it.  A book project based on Postgres seems no different to me
> from the money my company hopes to make from running a Postgres-based
> application.  Indeed, this book project is considerably more likely
> to return tangible benefit to the Postgres group (in the form of new
> users/contributors attracted to the project) than most other ways
> people might be using Postgres to make money.
> 
> In short, you needn't offer the slightest apology for collecting the
> book royalties personally.  From what I've heard of the book-writing
> biz, you're unlikely to get rich off it anyway :-(
> 
> Since I didn't see any howls of outrage on the mailing list, I imagine
> everyone else thinks the same anyway, but if you need some reassurance
> these are my two cents.

Well put Tom.  Couldn't have said it better.

Vince.
-- 
==========================================================================
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Wed, 20 Oct 1999 06:55:32 -0400 (EDT)
Vince Vielhaber <vev@michvhf.com>
Re: [HACKERS] book status 
I will have to agree whole heartily with the sentiments here. This a
work that your are doing and should rightly be appropriately
compensated. All within the PostgreSQL community will benefit.

The community will benefit with increased documentation, increased
exposure and visibility and increasing credibility. Philosophically, I
believe all who use PostgreSQL benefit economically simply by keeping
untold numbers of dollars (or other currency) in their pocket. Like you
I think those who do use PostgreSQL and can contribute should. But it is
nice to know that a quality option is available for those who can't
contribute financially.

I don't think you should feel obligated to contribute any of the
earnings to PostgreSQL. Let your giving be by choice and joy not
obligation due to pressure from any part of the community.

Absolutely no apology required. Your contribution is a blessing to the
community, not a burden. :)

Personally, I am ready to buy. Where can I get my copy. :)

I also hope have more books for PostgreSQL cooking on the back burner.

Jimmie Houchin


Tom Lane wrote:
> 
> Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> > Yes, I am being payed for the book, at some future date.  I realize
> > other developers are using PostgreSQL in their work or in consulting,
> > but this is a much more public involvement.  All I can say is that I
> > have always been ready to throw money into the PostgreSQL project, and
> > will continue to do so when possible.
> 
> Since you'll be doing the bulk of the work that is specific to the book,
> I can't see any reason to object to you being the one getting paid for
> it.  Many (most?) of us are using Postgres for work purposes, or
> otherwise deriving some kind of personal/corporate/proprietary benefit
> from it.  A book project based on Postgres seems no different to me
> from the money my company hopes to make from running a Postgres-based
> application.  Indeed, this book project is considerably more likely
> to return tangible benefit to the Postgres group (in the form of new
> users/contributors attracted to the project) than most other ways
> people might be using Postgres to make money.
> 
> In short, you needn't offer the slightest apology for collecting the
> book royalties personally.  From what I've heard of the book-writing
> biz, you're unlikely to get rich off it anyway :-(
> 
> Since I didn't see any howls of outrage on the mailing list, I imagine
> everyone else thinks the same anyway, but if you need some reassurance
> these are my two cents.
> 
> > BTW, where do people want the PDF and HTML files?  My idea is to update
> > them every night.
> 
> Stick 'em on the website/ftpsite somewhere under the docs page.  I'd
> probably gripe if I found them getting pulled as part of the regular CVS
> source module --- those updates are slow enough already --- but if you
> want to keep them in CVS I suppose a separate CVS module could be set up.
> 
>                         regards, tom lane
> 
> ************

Wed, 20 Oct 1999 13:36:55 -0500
Jimmie Houchin <jhouchin@texoma.net>
Re: [HACKERS] book status