Pretty much since the inception of Approachable Open Source, I’ve asked myself and others, “should the book itself be open source?” We’ll get to that below. But, let’s not bury the lede.
I’m pleased to announce the next best thing: you can now read chapters of the book for free.
📗 Read the book
📑 View the source
Details
Bias at the Front
The answer to that first question isn’t straightforward. And isn’t grounded solely by greed, I promise. Checking my biases up front here, I of course have faith in the value of the messaging within, and think it’s worth more than the sticker price. I’ve invested hundreds of hours into this and want to see it succeed. And yes, I got a pile of books to move.
But as more time goes on, the more I want humans to see it, internalize it, challenge it, expand upon it, share it… much more than I want a payoff, or to even break even.
And I mean, it’s right in the name… I want to make open source more approachable to everyone.
If you love something, set it free, right? So let’s open source this puppy!
Well, Actually…
There’s also the technical matter of if the book can or should even be open sourced in the technical phrasing of the word. I can make the source available (link above!), but the license is another thing. Most open source licenses are designed for software. See the drama about open source AI definition if you don’t believe me. I have a strong desire to not allow someone to take the work and sell it as their own, so that excludes many common licenses that allow for commercial use. Semantically, the legal framework of permissions, conditions, and limitations within most licenses, have meaning born from software. It doesn’t translate to purely written works. The Creative Commons licenses are a better fit.
BTW, I cover all this in the book. 😉
The Plan, and a Sale!
I’m dual-releasing chapters of the book on the site and on GitHub.
- The site provides a nice contextual reading environment, and allows me to “illuminate” the text with footnotes, images, and even extra content not available in the print version. I’m excited about this!
- The GitHub repo is the truest manuscript format, with just the raw markdown. This content is licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0.
My plan is to release another chapter every 4 to 6 months. It’ll be a bit of a slow trickle, but my goal is continual renewal of the illuminated content.
To celebrate the opening of the “Read” section, I’m offering a $10 OFF discount on the print version of the book.
- Buy the book - now with expanded payment options.
- This discount is on every copy, so bulk orders are AMAZING deals for your team, company, school, fundraiser, or as gifts.
- This discount is good until the end of January, cause I want us to be seasonally affected toward awesomeness.