I believe that the people who are doing the publishing are not operating
under any motive of human service, as they'd have us believe. Every CD-ROM
publisher to date has claimed that they're not making profit (or very little)
from the disks they're selling with FAQs on it.
Baloney. These folks are businesspeople, not philanthropists. They are
publishing from incorporated businesses in order to make a profit. Period.
If they weren't profiting (and name recognition can be every bit as profitable
as money, remember) from the CD-ROMs they wouldn't bother to publish them in
the first place. Ditto the book publishers/`writers'. They're out to make
a buck and instead of using their own original material they're collecting
ours free of charge and using it.
WE provide free dissemination of our FAQs by posting and archiving them. If
someone not on the Net asks, we will gladly inform them on how to get the
information for themselves. WE put in the work and allow the entirety of
Usenet access to this work without charge. WE own what we do, or co-own
the information with other writers, or believe that the infomation contained
within our documents are unowned except by the readers.
WE do NOT sell our work exclusively, even those FAQs which have been published
by the authors/maintainers for profit are still provided for the Usenet
commmunity.
Therefore, full authors or compilers, businessmen or hobbyist, the people who
create and maintain online FAQs should be the ones profiting, not some
publisher claiming that they're doing such a great and wonderful service for
the community and thank-you-very-much-for-your-free-contribution.
I'm absolutely positive my opinions above are going to spark some lively and
interesting debate, but I say what I believe. I'm too cynical to think that
I should happily turn my information over to whomever wants to publish it
however they like and not inquire about their profit motive.
Certain people out there (I keep getting whines from publishers about how
much is supposedly costs *them* to publish *my* work) are likely to take my
opinions personally, perhaps as flames. Fine. Please, if you find yourself
in this category, EMAIL me and we'll discuss it. The faq-maintainers mailing
list doesn't need that sort of flamewar.
I just refuse to remain silent when I believe myself to be correct.
- Britt (feeling particularly pugnacious right now...)
--
"I was sleeping nicely, then someone shut the lid on my pillow...
That hurt." - SJK 12-12-94 0500
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