I've heard good things about openstax.
I used several of their books in school. Each of them was top notch.
Hell, their math books are better than the paid books I used.
The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
31–40 of 87 posts
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#32Introduction to Statistical Thinking
(With R, Without Calculus) by Yakir is pretty cool.
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#33The best textbooks I used in uni were either free or extremely cheap (Linear Algebra done right comes to mind, it was 30-40$, and at least the most recent edition is completely free online. I can't remember if the edition that I bought had that option). More than once I had a professor who was in the process of drafting a textbook or had already written one and it was simply given to everyone in their section for fre…
>I wouldn't expect every professor to write their own
Wikibooks exists to allow people to collaboratively write textbooks, so every professor doesn't have to write the entire book https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#34Copyright stifles creative output. I believe that if we got rid of copyright (not just for textbooks), the quality and quantity of published work will increase.
Why would people author published works if they won’t get compensated? Countries with weak copyright enforcement don’t tend to have better output than the US (I think most would argue it’s worse). I do agree the term is too long, I would support something in the range of 5-20 years.
The most basic incentive is for the fun of it. There are plenty of people who publish stuff without hoping to get directly compensated for it. Even otherwise, ideas have a nasty habit of breaking free from the first authors, specially without laws to prevent such.
Also, copyright isn't about compensating authors, but publishers. Authors are basically an afterthought.
In regards to countries with weaker copyright enforcement, I think there's a bit of an inversion. Most countries that fail to properly enforce copyright do so due to a lot of structural issues, which also hamper creative thinking for independent reasons. China would be an example of a country with weaker copyright enforcement but also with good infrastructure, and it seems to be overtaking (if it already didn't) the US in terms of creative production (both for copyright and patents).
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would people author published works if they won’t get compensated? Countries with weak copyright enforcement don’t tend to have better output than the US (I think most would argue it’s worse). I do agree the term is too long, I would support something in the range of 5-20 years.
That's an odd question to ask given the history of free media like flash games, youtube videos, deviant art/pixiv/etc, and fan fiction. Getting paid, especially enough that one can make a living off of it, for your creative work is an exception not the rule way more people create it for no money than ever make any money at all much less a living.
The media you cite are still copyrighted, meaning that it’s illegal for other people to distribute them or make money of it without a corresponding license. If that weren’t the case, creators might be more reluctant.
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#36“Everything except what I do should be free to me.”
Remember that you can make your own textbook (and accompanying materials) using your own money and time whenever you want!
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#37Completely agree with the sentiment of the article.
Also Remzi is a fantastic teacher. Really enjoyed being in his lectures.
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#38considering anna's archive exists, they already are?
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#39I remember when the university where I worked made a big show out of moving to online textbooks. It was supposed to reduce the cost, reduce the need to lug books around, save trees, any rationale you could think of was thrown into the mix.
In the end, books didn't get any cheaper. E-books cost about the same as renting a paper textbook for the term, the DRM protection was cumbersome, if you had to go online the websites were slow. They just didn't solve any real problems, and didn't save much money.
In fact printed books are still widely used.
Re: The Case for Free Online Books (2014)
#40They should at least be free through the university, given the insane prices students paying for tuition now. Maybe it could be sold for money to those not actually attending a course on a subject, but I hear of far too many examples where it seems the lecturer/professor is basically using the students as a secondary way of making money. And the online setup is arguably even better for the reasons noted. Perhaps in t…
Perhaps you fail to see how this would probably lead to textbooks costing even more and which will be directly passed to students as higher tuition?
You are assuming that the actual cost of a textbook on math which hasn't changed in centuries is hundreds of dollars per student per class when in actuality without the profit incentive a 100M could use the same ebook over a decade wherein the unit cost is almost too low to measured even if pay excellent folks to produce a new work.