Ronald Wiplinger (Lists) wrote: > Christoph, > > I brought that to the attention of the company, but they refuse to pay > for the book with the reasons: > 1. The program is free, but how to use it we should pay? > 2. The program and the documentation seems to be independent, means > there is no guaranty that the information is correct nor a chance to get > it fixed. > 3. If we have to pay, then we pay to a commercial product. > > > For me it is also not understandable that the documentation is a > different project and extra to pay. I understand that the effort should > be awarded. BUT a good programmer will make the documentation at the > same time, otherwise nobody can use the program. > > Therefore, where are the docs, that lead to the book? > I guess if there are many companies out there who feel this way, we could change the way that Scribus is available just for them, and charge for the program, thus, this would be in keeping with charging for the manual and apparently be OK then. Of course, we would need to charge a per user licence, and you cannot really own the program but just have a licence to use it.
I big reason why the printed manual exists is based on various users wanting a printed manual as opposed to the free online help available. Unfortunately, we could not find a publisher, a printer, and supplier of materials who would bring out this book at no cost (or for that matter, some commercial concern who would donate to the Scribus project so that the manual might be available for free). Money that does trickle its way through this making-publishing-printing process goes back to the project to be used to help advance the software. We apologize if this seems to be mercenary and offensive to the commercial world out there. In the end, I guess your company is an example of how commercial concerns really don't understand the FOSS concept. It's probably just never going to make sense that people would work this hard on a project without monetary compensation. Greg
