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Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

freedom-to-tinker.com

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Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#11

Post by sandworm101 »

pmorici wrote: post #9
sandworm101 wrote: post #8

>> Princeton University Press is publishing the official, polished, and professionally done version of this book. It will be out in summer 2016. Is this really freely available? I'd much rather see Princeton release this book to the public domain.

You can download the draft as PDF right from their site.

Yes, but that isn't free imho. Can I host a copy on my own website? Can I include the book as part of a course taught at my school? Can I integrate chapters of the book into another book that I may be writing? Making a copy available for reading isn't the same as making it free.

Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#13

Post by bjornsing »

kang wrote: post #4

I found the book(& course notes) to be interesting but non-technical & little verbose. For those wanting to read technical subject matter I'd recommend the bitcoin developer reference & bitcoin developer guide at bitcoin.org

Why not Satoshi's original paper [1]?

1. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#14

Post by lololomg »

sandworm101 wrote: post #11
pmorici wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can download the draft as PDF right from their site.

Yes, but that isn't free imho. Can I host a copy on my own website? Can I include the book as part of a course taught at my school? Can I integrate chapters of the book into another book that I may be writing? Making a copy available for reading isn't the same as making it free.

Some people are just never happy about anything

Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#15

Post by olalonde »

bjornsing wrote: post #13
kang wrote: post #4

I found the book(& course notes) to be interesting but non-technical & little verbose. For those wanting to read technical subject matter I'd recommend the bitcoin developer reference & bitcoin developer guide at bitcoin.org

Why not Satoshi's original paper [1]? 1. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

That's a good place to start but it's also light on technical details and Bitcoin has evolved a bit since then.

Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#17

Post by rwallace »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

>> Princeton University Press is publishing the official, polished, and professionally done version of this book. It will be out in summer 2016. Is this really freely available? I'd much rather see Princeton release this book to the public domain.

While I think the notion of intellectual property is a mistake, when someone offers us a half-full glass of lemonade, to respond with a complaint that the glass is half empty is extremely poor form.

Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#18

Post by logicallee »

sandworm101 wrote: post #11
pmorici wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can download the draft as PDF right from their site.

Yes, but that isn't free imho. Can I host a copy on my own website? Can I include the book as part of a course taught at my school? Can I integrate chapters of the book into another book that I may be writing? Making a copy available for reading isn't the same as making it free.

That's not really free though, is it? Because I can't really just start hosting it, claiming to be its author, and have people believe me. (White-labelling). For that to happen, the original authors have to stay anonymous, it has to have much less branding included.

So it's not really all that free in my opinion, even with your additions. /s

Re: Princeton Bitcoin textbook is now freely available

#20

Post by violentvinyl »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

>> Princeton University Press is publishing the official, polished, and professionally done version of this book. It will be out in summer 2016. Is this really freely available? I'd much rather see Princeton release this book to the public domain.

Free as in beer, which is a step in the right direction at an institution where other textbooks could cost hundreds of dollars.
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