[Asterisk-Users] FINALLY! a good book about Asterisk.

[Andy Powell]

On 08/07/2004 at 22:19 usedcanon wrote:

>-----Original Message-----
>From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
>[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Harold
>Workman
>Sent: 08 July 2004 20:15
>To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
>Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FINALLY! a good book about Asterisk.
>
>
>what does that have to do with an overpriced book?
>and i agree with Joe.  With this book sourcing most of the documentation
>directly from wiki, why pay for something thats free?  Id rather donate $49
>to keeping wiki free to the enviroment.
>
>
>I second that, I think a more reasonably priced book in PDF fromat would
>have been better.
>
>Umar.
>


Late last year I was approached by a publisher asking if I would be interested in writing
an asterisk book. I said a polite no (after some discussion) for a number of reasons:

1. Precisely what the author of this book is experiencing. Being bitchslapped by the
asterisk community, for no apparent good reason. Since very few of the people on 
this list have actually read the book this early critism and mud slinging appears unfounded.

Let's face it - the biggest failing of asterisk is it's lack of documentation. 
Sure there are guides, documentation projects.. but all of these rely on people giving 
up their free time... and since we don't have much of that, progress is slow. Anything 
that helps document asterisk and how to get it set up can't be all that bad. 


2. I hand't heard of the publisher before, and a google search didn't turn up the most
favourable links.


3. Asterisk changes day by day.. If I'd gone with it the book would have been out by now
and (aside from being bitchslapped) I'd probably immediately have had to start a 2nd 
edition.. I'm not a writer... I can't even spell properly.

I don't know what the author was offered, but if it was just 15% then perhaps the deal I was 
offered wasn't as bad as I thought...


At $49 it is quite expensive, however, when funds allow I'll more than likely buy a copy 
out of interest - I consider myself fairly a well seasoned asterisk person, but hey it might
teach me something too... I'm prepared to give it a chance.


All IMHO of course...


Andy