Frequently
Asked Questions
1. Can I
redistribute copies of an eBook purchased for
student instructional use? YES! Under the
terms of the Creative Commons license I have
issued for my materials, instructors who purchase
a copy of an eBook can redistribute it (make
copies) to their students without incurring a
licensing fee for instructional use.
2. Can I
print copies of individual lessons found on this
site, or redistribute copies of a paperback
edition purchased for student instructional
use? YES! Just like the eBook editions,
the terms of the Creative Commons license I have
issued for my paperback guides and individual
lessons found on this site allow instructors to
redistribute it (make photocopies) to their
students without incurring a licensing fee for
instructional use.
3. If I can
make photocopies copies of lessons found within
the documentation section and paperback books
made available on this site, why should I
purchase additional copies or require students to
obtain their own copy? There are several
answers and several ways in looking at the issue.
First, the learning materials are written and
released under the generous Creative Commons
licensing terms because of my experience as an
instructor and my commitment for learning to be
accessible to everyone. Therefore, if a student
can’t afford to purchase learning
materials, or has to choose between buying a book
or buying a meal for themselves or their family,
I would much rather the student have free access
to the materials.
However, students and instructors should also
consider the costs of reproducing the materials.
The distribution costs of an eBook via school
file server may be negligible if students and
instructors can effectively learn by using an
electronic guide. The photocopying of a 200+ page
book becomes another matter, if you factor in
photocopy costs per page, purchasing of a ring
binder to store the pages, and the time and
effort it takes to assemble the documentation
into a ring binder. In such a case, it may be
more cost effective to buy a professionally
published, bound paperback copy. Moreover, the
purchasing of any official author-published eBook
or paperback copy ensures revenue to continue
producing and making available open licensed
learning materials for the future.
4. I have
noticed at various online book retailers that
there are two editions of your book being sold.
Do you publish both editions and, if so, what are
the differences in each? Shortly after I
released “A Conceptual Guide to
OpenOffice.org 3”, someone downloaded a
copy of the eBook edition from the OpenOffice.org
Documentation Site, uploaded it to CreateSpace
(which is a print-on-demand company owned by
Amazon), placed a new cover on the book with my
name on it, and began selling reproduced
paperback copies. That particular edition, which
is now considered out-of-date, is still being
sold. I do not have any affiliation with the
person publishing this work or with CreateSpace,
nor do I receive any proceeds from the sale of
this reproduced version.
The second edition,
“A
Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org: Second
Edition”, with the assigned ISBN
number 978-0-9778991-7-3, is the edition
that is published by myself and is
considered to be the most current,
up-to-date edition. Its book cover is unique
from the older, reproduced version and also
has a larger number of pages (282 pages for
the reproduced edition vs. 364 pages for the
Second Edition I publish). Proceeds from the
sale of the edition I publish is used for
the development of future learning
materials, as well as the release of these
learning materials under open licenses in
cooperation with other open source projects
such as the
OpenOffice.org Documentation
Project.