Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

"Please take this down and write your own book."

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 178 posts

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#161

Post by nickpinkston »

Semiapies wrote: post #89
nickpinkston wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's copyright's all over the web, and anything without it is common law'ed into being copyrighted - so no. Personally, I go by the mantra of "if you post it, anyone can use it how they like". Sure, Zed is within his legal rights to ask for this, but I'm surprised no one is viewing this from the angle of the Ruby community losing a (possibly) valuable resource because "Zed's brand" has to be maintained... Se…

As linked elsewhere: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1739890 Copy & paste probably won't make a useful Ruby book. "Seems like everyone is so sensitive about the sanctity of their ideas." That's the pain of dealing with other human beings as if they are human beings and not just web sites or github repositories.

My argument isn't that this Ruby version is so compelling it deserves to exist. I think restricting creativity "because I made it" is a stupid reason. Maybe others would have (are?) making useful "X The Hard Way" books stop because of this. I don't see what the benefit of him restricting it is.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#162

Post by natep »

rbanffy wrote: post #115
JoeCortopassi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. Trying to get a hold of someone, then assuming permission when they don't respond isn't ok. I'd be pissed to...

I would ask the person to take it down and that would be it. Zed asked, then insulted. Insulting people is not a good way to win someone's cooperation.

"I think what you did was classless. I think you should try again, but with class"

If I said that to you, would you be insulted? I said nothing about your character, and if anything, he was being encouraging.

And then, you're pissed at Zed calling them hippies, after telling him "good fucking riddance" and displaying exactly the behavior that he defines as being a hippie ("all about the love, except when you're not" - conveniently defined in the same sentence)?

It would be one thing if the class thing was actually an insult, or if Zed hadn't made his wishes clear in the license.

So, seriously, what is so insulting about the whole 'class' line?

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#163

Post by natep »

xentronium wrote: post #123
sblom wrote: post #116

Wow. I really want to be on Zed's side here, but while his message is 99% legit, his delivery leaves something to be desired.

Original author (martinemde) had good intentions but was stopped by a fact he was dealing with a douchebag. Lesson #1: don't deal with douchebags. Zed thinks he's making something of extraordinary quality that's going to suck when crowdsourced. I am 100% sure he's wrong because wikipedia is crowdsourced and wikipedia is awesome.

Did you notice that the book has an issue tracker? How many other books have one of those?

Also, Wikipedia may be awesome, but what percentage of Wikipedia clones are awesome?

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#164

Post by natep »

Nobody's going to notice this comment now, but Martin Edme has posted a formal apology.

Zed, it seems, will not apologize, based on recent twitter updates:

Hilarious hypocrisy how I'm called a "dick", "asshole", "d-bag", and "cock" because I said someone should have some "class".

33 minutes ago via web [1]

[1] http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/774156132024320

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#165

Post by lzw »

martinemde wrote: post #107

Please see the README on the front page of the project with my update. https://github.com/martinemde/learn-ruby-the-hard-way I've calmed a bit since the original postings. I can see why he was upset and I know that the right thing to do was to remove the book. I had good intentions and I did this out of homage, not to steal or claim any credit. I've always been a fan of Zed's work. I will continue to be despite getti…

You still don't seem to get it. You may have calmed down but you don't sound like you think you've done anything wrong.

It sure sounds like your employer demanded that you stop embarassing them, more than anything else.

What I think you really need to learn- and this will only come from self examination, not being told by people like me-- is why what you did was wrong. You think that because your intentions were, in your perception "noble" that the ends justifies the means.

But consider this- you were attempting to profit-- yes, profit-- from someone else's work. (Profit comes in terms of attention and reputation and awareness and popularity, not just financial renumeration.) Even though you were giving him credit, you were attempting to profit from his work without his permission. That's why this is wrong.

Sure, others release their work and give blanket permission for people to profit from it. You may like that better because you get more for free from it. But that doesn't change what you tried to do to Zed.

Zed was write to admonish you, and your defensiveness is understandable. But you're not going to profit from this unless you learn the lesson this event is trying to teach you.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#166

Post by lhnz »

lhnz wrote: post #40

If the guy credited him and Zed's book was free online, then I really think Zed is doing the coding world a disservice here...

I'm getting downvoted, so I'll expand:

If you make ethical judgments directly from the license then Zed Shaw is right. But Martin hadn't really done much wrong. The book was free online, and it would be classed as fair use by many people if it had been made using music, film or tv. He also made sure to credit Zed for the text, and only an idiot would think that Zed was able to change his text to fit the code better so I don't think it would reflect back on Zed badly at all...

Then again, in my opinion, what is important is that there are more beginning code examples to read in Ruby. Bullshit over rights or hatred of whole programming communities be damned.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#167

Post by rbanffy »

Semiapies wrote: post #142
rbanffy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask the person to take it down and that would be it. Zed asked, then insulted. Insulting people is not a good way to win someone's cooperation.

Why would Shaw need to win Edme's cooperation?

Why would he need anyone's cooperation since he's so fucking awesome? I don't know.

I prefer to have other people's cooperation.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#168

Post by rbanffy »

natep wrote: post #162
rbanffy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask the person to take it down and that would be it. Zed asked, then insulted. Insulting people is not a good way to win someone's cooperation.

"I think what you did was classless. I think you should try again, but with class" If I said that to you, would you be insulted? I said nothing about your character, and if anything, he was being encouraging. And then, you're pissed at Zed calling them hippies, after telling him "good fucking riddance" and displaying exactly the behavior that he defines as being a hippie ("all about the love, except when you're not"…

Your response was really idiotic.

How do you feel about this statement?

Of course, I didn't mean it - your statement is very well reasoned, but when Zed turned his interests towards the Python language and the largely civilized community around it, I worried that his behaviour could become, if not the norm, a trend. I have strong ties to this community and my work largely depends on its health.

Zed's divisive. No community needs divisive people. Code is less important than being able to play with others.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#169

Post by rbanffy »

Semiapies wrote: post #134
rbanffy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An equally important part is to refrain from doing it when you think the other part would be gravely offended. As Martin explained, he was paying homage to Zed. Instead of trying to understand the reasons someone would like to homage him, Zed insulted Martin. When I ask someone to take down a plagiarized version of something I wrote (it happens) I usually point out I do not license the material on my site. I don't ca…

" An equally important part is to refrain from doing it " No, that would be closer to the "asking permission" philosophy.

It's better to ask for forgiveness, but asking permission, when feasible and practical (Zed ignored the guy, after all) is nice.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#170

Post by anthonyb »

rbanffy wrote: post #108
jwhitlark wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You didn't respond to me" does not lead to "I can do what I want with material you post". Good faith means honoring people's wishes until they tell you otherwise. Aside: Normally I look for something like O'Reilly's statement "This book is to help you get your job done." The code is gone, so I can't tell where this would fall on the reasonableness continuum. Aside Aside: Zed's a nice guy in person; I'd guess the har…

I don't know Zed in person, but the harshness presented online is excessive. While I agree Linus can drive many programmers to tears I can't remember him calling anyone a hippie or saying someone lacks class.

Try this: http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/6/17/250

and this: http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/6/17/254

Post reply on HN