A bit more than a year elapsed since we announced our plans to translate our Debian book into English and to try to get it published under a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. But we’re now ready to go to the next step.
Completing the translation of 450 pages book is a huge work, we estimate it’s going to take roughly 3 full time months for both Roland and me. Since we’re freelancers, we can take the required time provided that we have a minimum income during that period. That’s where you come into play: we have setup a crowdfunding campaign on Ulule.com and we need your support to raise €15000 (this is the absolute minimum for us to be able to commit the required time).
Even if a good and up-to-date book on Debian is a great perspective, we want to go further than that by adding the perspective of getting a DFSG-free Debian book. That’s why we have transformed the crowfunding campaign in a liberation campaign. When you support the project, you can pledge money towards a liberation fund… and if this fund reaches €25000 then the book will be published under the GPL-2+ and CC-BY-SA 3.0 licenses.
On top of this, when you support this project you can select a reward that goes from a copy of the ebook to a dinner with the authors (only 10 places for the latter)! Among the other rewards, there’s obviously a paperback version of the book, but also an individual one-hour mentoring session with me… a nice way to get you hooked as a new Debian contributor (limited to 40 persons, don’t miss the opportunity!).
Wait no longer, click here and pledge some money to bring this reference book to Debian and the rest of the world.
We also need your help to spread the news and get as many supporters as possible. Share the link with your friends, write an article on your blog, put a widget on your website, etc. Thank you very much!
Click here to go to the fundraising page and to learn more about this project.
I cannot say I am personally interested in the English version of this book: as I am French, the French version already suits me. However, I do like this liberation project, but to be honest, what I would love to fund is a liberation of both the French and an English version.
This is unfortunately not under my control. But be sure that if the English book is liberated, I will be in a much better position to convince Eyrolles to accept a license change.
Right, I shall contribute with that objective in mind. Eyrolles has already published at least one book under a free license, the biography of Richard M. Stallman.
Good idea this one-hour mentoring gift. Hope this fundraising will work.
I know a French Major who would LOVE to help translate the book – while we cannot donate, we can help. Is there an option to help you translate the book to English?
Hello Megsuma, we don’t want too many translators to keep a high consistency in the style, but we can benefit from proofreaders. Please ask him to mail me at raphael@ouaza.com if he’s interested to help.