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OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

openstax.org

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Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#3
> OpenStax at Rice University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity

Good to see that OpenStax is a 501(c)(3) charity, which is the nonprofit classification where donations are tax-deductible and thus restricted. That makes it harder for the organization to be influenced too directly by sponsors, since donations cannot be used for purposes which would yield direct marketplace advantage.

I also see that they use a permissive, attribution-based license for their publications. That makes it easier for businesses to consume those materials and also to contribute.

https://openstax.org/license

> The Creative Commons Attribution license that you and every author must agree to enables the content to be as reusable as possible.

The combination of 501(c)(3) and business-friendly licensing reminds me of the Apache Software Foundation. The more orgs using that formula, the better!

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#4
post #2

You can find those and more here: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ I'm still looking for the sources. I would like to compile them to epub format

Oh wow, this is a great aggregator site! Thx for posting.

Here are some links to other OER textbooks aggregators from my bookmarks:

https://www.cccoer.org/learn/find-oer/open-textbooks/ https://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/08/14/the-price-i... http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/c.php?g=160393&p=1053364 https://textbooks.opensuny.org/browse-oer/ http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/mathematics-reviews/ https://www.oercommons.org/curated-collections

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#5
post #2

You can find those and more here: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ I'm still looking for the sources. I would like to compile them to epub format

You can find the sources when you go to the link "view online" which will redirect you to the http://cnx.org website to all the sources (OpenStax was Connections/CNX in the past). It includes all HTML/XML, images and special styling. Here an example for the algebra book (scroll down to downloads): https://cnx.org/contents/CImQfPDv@3.11:GfaWl1GG@4/Introducti... Actually they also produced epub in the past (disclaimer: I worked for them in the past) and I'm sure you can get epub versions from them if you contact them.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#6
post #2

You can find those and more here: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ I'm still looking for the sources. I would like to compile them to epub format

Have to have a valid Gitbook account to access these works, which is a bit of a mission. I keep getting 401 despite careful, and seemingly error-free, sign-up process.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#7
post #6
post #2

You can find those and more here: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ I'm still looking for the sources. I would like to compile them to epub format

Have to have a valid Gitbook account to access these works, which is a bit of a mission. I keep getting 401 despite careful, and seemingly error-free, sign-up process.

gitbook? There is no gitbook used for official OpenStax books.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#8
post #2

You can find those and more here: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ I'm still looking for the sources. I would like to compile them to epub format

You can find the sources when you go to the link "view online" which will redirect you to the http://cnx.org website to all the sources (OpenStax was Connections/CNX in the past). It includes all HTML/XML, images and special styling. Here an example for the algebra book (scroll down to downloads): https://cnx.org/contents/CImQfPDv@3.11:GfaWl1GG@4/Introducti... Actually they also produced epub in the past (disclaimer:…

You mean to download the Offline ZIP, right? that's the main book source?

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#9
post #3

> OpenStax at Rice University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity Good to see that OpenStax is a 501(c)(3) charity, which is the nonprofit classification where donations are tax-deductible and thus restricted. That makes it harder for the organization to be influenced too directly by sponsors, since donations cannot be used for purposes which would yield direct marketplace advantage. I also see that they use a permissiv…

I disagree. I would very much prefer a "GPL type" share-alike licence. The basic principle is: I'm releasing this content to the public, with the expectation that anyone that builds upon it will also do the same. Otherwise people can take what I did, use it for their profit, and not contribute back, hurting the overall community. This doesn't seem fair to me.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#10
post #9
post #3

> OpenStax at Rice University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity Good to see that OpenStax is a 501(c)(3) charity, which is the nonprofit classification where donations are tax-deductible and thus restricted. That makes it harder for the organization to be influenced too directly by sponsors, since donations cannot be used for purposes which would yield direct marketplace advantage. I also see that they use a permissiv…

I disagree. I would very much prefer a "GPL type" share-alike licence. The basic principle is: I'm releasing this content to the public, with the expectation that anyone that builds upon it will also do the same. Otherwise people can take what I did, use it for their profit, and not contribute back, hurting the overall community. This doesn't seem fair to me.

For that you have the CC-license family and other similar licenses for artistic creations.

The GPL does not strike me as the license to use for text books (since it asks for source code an such) and I think the FSF has state that the GPL isn't a good idea for documentation, I'd carry that to books too.

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