Questions from someone who last used RISCOS on an A310

Steve, Andrew is not the only person involved in ROD

The issue here isn’t really the licencing. The issue is that yesterday, Andrew wrote

Maybe I’m blind. That’s the charitable assumption, anyway.

referring to being unable to find the User Guide download. A director of ROD, whether wearing his official hat or not, should not be writing posts in public implying ulterior motives of anyone at ROOL without having first asked in private what the situation is. Since ROOL have explained things here this morning, it seems that they could have done the same for Andrew very easily had he bothered to ask at any point since Direct was released.

The PDF, fonts and everything else is a complete side issue to the words “that’s the charitable assumption, anyway” in a post yesterday. Those words are important, and give a very bad impression.

In the fourteen years ROOL has been working, voluntarily, in the RISC OS community, we have necessarily had to learn all about and be very mindful of intellectual property rights (IPR). Publishing the RISC OS sources, for example, came with certain legal obligations to perform due diligence around tracing who owns what and whether we have the permission to do what we were aiming to do. We also recognise that there is often considerable investment (financial, efforts, etc.) behind much IPR, and we should respect and recognise that fact in what we do.

Unfortunately, it’s clear that there are many in the community, including those operating commercially, who do not share our familiarity, awareness or sensitivity to IPR. Perhaps they see “Open Source” and assume everything is fair game. We see attributions removed in distros, we see our IPR being used without even having been shown the courtesy of asking us, we see third party software where we negotiated distribution rights bundled that isn’t part of RISC OS, we even see Copyright messages changed and licence documentation removed. Recently, we’ve seen people publishing source code which, to our knowledge, no permission has ever been obtained.

We may be a not-for-profit organisation, but we are not a free consultancy to others who are looking to profit and we would always ask people reusing materials that we publish to think first about IPR and perhaps get in touch with us before acting. RISC OS Developments owns the rights to much of the RISC OS source code but a) I don’t think they would be happy for someone to claim otherwise and b) that certainly doesn’t mean they own everything that ROOL produces. I hope nobody in the community thinks otherwise.

Oh by the way I am currently looking at the RISC OS 5 User Guide PDF from March 2016 Issue 1 – no markings to say its a draft.

March 2016 doesn’t have it, but that’s part way through the edit stream.
The June 2017 does have the “Draft” tag as do all editions after that. I hadn’t looked before.

Earlier I posed two slightly different scenarios

# If the Direct image was done after break even, then this: “For the User Guide for 5.24 a PDF was made available as promised once the project broke even, up until the time it became obsolete” implies that the image should actually have the complete March 2018 revision, but it only has the March 2016 revision.
# If the image was done before the break even then surely by the rules/guidelines in play there should have been no User Guide in the image, yes?

From Steve R’s post: “In the fourteen years ROOL has been working…” I’m thinking that ROOL were not aware that there was a copy of the UserGuide of any revision in the Direct image and I’m wondering whether they were aware of the RPCEmu bundle.

I’m definitely thinking that there was distinct lack of communication about a lot of things.

I think I’ll go and follow the US election as comedic relief.

and that sets the effective cost price – more than just buying blank paper!

Oh, I know. I’ve looked at publishing with the likes of Lulu. Seems fairly straightforward, but my little paperback would cost about a tenner or so.
Of that, I would probably make somewhere between 5p and 20p. All the rest is everybody else’s costs.
I mean, it’s nice that I could have an actual book printed on demand… but you do pay for the privilege.

Personally, I’d actually be happy to pay a little to retain that.

You might be, Steve (one of the many ;-) ). However you are not exactly the intended audience of a user guide – you already know all that stuff!

On the other hand, a potential new user (and do not forget, RISC OS is somewhat different to typical systems) is in the position of having to buy a book in order to understand how to use the system.
A free PDF? Nope, can’t, because some third-party licence says no…

To that end, I think a reasonable goal for the next iteration of the user guide ought to be to replace whatever these costly/restrictive fonts are with something else.

Oh, and some PD fonts can leave “surprises” at the printing stage.

I don’t know how the user guide publisher works, but in Lulu it’s required that you purchase a one-off draft copy to approve. And while it might potentially get expensive if several drafts are required to ensure everything works as expected, I would imagine several of the regulars around here would be happy to sponsor a copy.

I’ll toss my name into the hat. If you need a draft copy to check the replaced fonts are good, I’ll buy a copy (what is, about £32 to Europe?). You check it, then post it on to me when you’re done. Oh, and feel free to sign it too. ;-) Okay?

they could always raise money by making it a Kindle book

My ‘attitude’ towards my “book” (should such a thing ever exist) would be that the printed copy, by necessity, will cost a certain amount. The Kindle version would be free. The reason for this is that looking at how Kindle sets itself up, it looks as if Amazon pretty much provides the service to you for free if your book is free, but if it isn’t, then there’s all sorts of weird little charges that suggest the book would have to be priced fairly high or one risks actually losing money on it.

Just, you know, read all the small print.

there was distinct lack of communication about a lot of things.

Yes, and a public forum probably isn’t the best place for calling out anybody “official”.

I think I’ll go and follow the US election as comedic relief.

Truth: Biden has won but nobody is brave enough to say it outright as The Donald will go newkewler. Hence Biden 264 vs Trump 214 since… what, Thursday?

Alt-Truth: Donald won. Donald said so. Anything else is those lousy stinking Democrats stealing votes ¹.

Holy Crap moment: Georgia recount. About five million votes cast. Biden won by a sliver of a fraction: 1,579 votes.

Other Holy Crap moment: That (currently) 70,561,283 people think that the orange lunatic is the guy best qualified to run the country. Strong support from the working class. You know, the ones most likely to get screwed if he does away with affordable care in the middle of a pandemic.

Karmic Justice moment: Compare a map of the US showing which states have been hit the hardest by Covid with a map of the US showing which states voted Republican.
That God you guys all pray too? He clearly doesn’t like you.

¹ The other party taking votes… uh… isn’t that how elections are supposed to work?

My ‘attitude’ towards my “book” (should such a thing ever exist) would be that the printed copy, by necessity, will cost a certain amount. The Kindle version would be free.

This, exactly. I’ve got four books in print, and make so little on them I can scarcely be bothered to collect the pennies – but at least if anyone wants an actual physical book they can have them. But I’ve now made the electronic versions (Kindle, ebook or PDF) freely available on my website, including two new “books” that don’t (yet?) exist in print – I care more about being read than making any money (but would nonetheless be very happy if anyone were to shove a few quid in my bank account while I’m not looking…)

http://clive.semmens.org.uk/FictionL.html

Karmic Justice moment

> Aldershot: Karma

To that end, I think a reasonable goal for the next iteration of the user guide ought to be to replace whatever these costly/restrictive fonts are with something else.

Yes, I had to do that with the Impression manual. There were fonts that would not display correctly on a RISC OS machine like AvantG, Dingbats, Garamond, Greek and Sidney unless the RISC OS machine had those fonts installed. Because the fonts were embedded in the document they would display OK on Windows and on RISC OS with some PDF viewers. I had to substitute them with fonts which are provided by default on all RISC OS machines. Some fonts, like Arial, I made a RISC OS equivalent but with extra characters in the coding (eighths fractions and prime marks). By producing the manual under RISC OS and using MW’s postscript printer drivers to generate the PDF, I could produce a PDF that would appear correctly on RISC OS. I have a lot of EFF fonts and the licensing allows me to use them to produce printed matter and PDFs from them.

I use !Nettle to talk to both my Linux Virtual Machines via SSH. It also has VT220 facilities among many others. It’s available for download here…

http://nettle.sourceforge.net/

and some PD fonts can leave “surprises” at the printing stage. In something like the User Guide, that could be expensive compared to licensing “professional” fonts.

There may be, but there are many “professional” freely-licensed fonts. For example, Source Sans Pro and Source Serif Pro from Adobe.

The fonts used in the existing printed User Guide may copy Acorn’s style but they are not (IMHO) particularly readable…

The fonts used in the existing printed User Guide may copy Acorn’s style but they are not (IMHO) particularly readable…

On that point or two

Do we even want to copy Acorn’s font use at the expense of having to charge to cover the font licence?
There seems to be a real need for a freely available UserGuide – something I thought we had but apparently not.

I have digital and printed copies of various UserGuide editions and rarely glance at any.
New users are different and really need that stuff, so I would suggest a change of font is in order.

As a new user of RISC OS starting in 2020 and having never used it before I find its way of doing things rather non-intuitive. I think its a pretty cool system, but having a freely downloadable pdf which is up to date is necessary for new users like me. New users care 0 about keeping decades old “look/feel” of ancient documentation. Dump the licensed fonts and rid yourself of restrictive costly licensing models please.

First
+1 ditch the costly fonts.

As a new user of RISC OS starting in 2020 and having never used it before I find its way of doing things rather non-intuitive.

That’s interesting, you see when I first used Windows back in the 3.0 days there were two things I found:

1. It was awful and clunky – they’ve improved that and backslid and improved and…
2. The actions of the mouse pointer didn’t seem intuitive and had things missing (still do – where’s the ability to reverse scroll direction with moving the mouse 1 iota? As in click left for one scroll direction, click right and it goes the other)

That gives you a reference point for my thinking.

Part of that was that I was used to the RO GUI before I ever saw a Windows GUI and I suspect a large part of your view is that you were used to and very familiar with Windows before you ever saw RISC OS
Linux did certain window actions like close from tool icons located differently than Windows, some people didn’t like that because it was unfamiliar – not non-intuitive, but unfamiliar.

having a freely downloadable pdf which is up to date is necessary for new users like me

That is one where I think every new user will agree and I challenge any of the oldies round here to give a half decent reason why you could be wrong. They will fail if they try.

New users care 0 about keeping decades old “look/feel” of ancient documentation.

Not just the new users I assure you.
Just as long as the digital documentation refrains from the “you need a video for this because” and “I made a video, so I’m not writing it down” pairing that is so often practised by news sites etc in their dumb down pathway.

New users care 0 about keeping decades old “look/feel” of ancient documentation.

You’re doubly right there, although you may not have realised it.
You see, part of the cost of the “dead tree” version of the guide is those fonts, so dropping the costly fonts means a reduced cost for production.

having a freely downloadable pdf which is up to date is necessary for new users like me

That is one where I think every new user will agree and I challenge any of the oldies round here to give a half decent reason why you could be wrong. They will fail if they try.

Here’s one oldie who will agree with you 100%.

Just as long as the digital documentation refrains from the “you need a video for this because” and “I made a video, so I’m not writing it down” pairing that is so often practised by news sites etc in their dumb down pathway.

Amen to that as well.

On the costly fonts I agree do away with them but somewhere along the line it would be good to reward those who put the effort in to update the guide and make it available in legacy paper format.

As an “oldie” I take the view there is room for two approaches on documentation.

Expecting someone to read a 588 page “User Guide” in paper format as a new user is clearly not going to happen for many who wish to try RISC OS.

So a quick Welcome guide setting out the basics backed up by some video’s is the basic requirement I would say.

Then power users can go in to the full guide and as stated having that in a media that most use today is the way to go with paper an option for those who require it.

Easy of entry is the key as people often make their minds up quickly and as I said expecting someone to read 588 pages of documentation is going to put people off but having it there helps keep those people who want to know more interested.

A PDF welcome guide would be a very good idea for new users. To give them a starting point and supplied with all new distros of the OS as standard, if the Cloverleaf project is to he;lp the RISC OS scene then this is a very important part of helping new users.

I also agree with Doug, drop the costly fonts from the User Guide. Its time to move on to now rather then yester year with the style of manual design. I do think their should be a PDF version of it available to download or at least installed on commercially supplied RISC OS computers and they maybe pay a small fee for that version to be provided.

Just some thoughts. ROOL might disagree.

Perhaps, take note a from the RPi foundation’s model. Include a bookshelf within your distribution and publish a paper copy. I would also include the Style Guide, User Interface Toolbox and a Basic Manual. If you signpost within those publications that a printed version is available, sales will improve.

;-) Sitting here with my copy of the User Interface Toolbox manual.

ROOL might disagree.

So might others who currently have all of the ROOL publications¹ on their bookshelf, and who would be less likely to buy more if they drop the production standard. Compare the ROOL books to the one produced by ROL some years back to see what the difference is.

I’d like to see a financial justification for dropping the current design before changes are made, because I doubt it’s the most significant cost involved by any means. Fonts were a long way down the list of items in this post, after “mastering in Adobe FrameMaker, through buying ISBNs, to having to send multiple copies to the Legal Deposit libraries”. The only way you don’t get those costs is if you don’t produce printed copies — and if you achieve that goal, you’ve destroyed another useful development in the market.

However you do them, books are expensive in small numbers if done legally. As I recall, the aforementioned ROL PRM extension also cost well into double figures, and that didn’t use licenced fonts (or if it did, it certainly didn’t need to — they don’t look like anything other than the ones bundled with RISC OS or Windows).

Perhaps the better way forward is for ROD to talk to ROOL about covering the costs on the User Guide, so that it can be bundled with their Direct product and made available as a free download? Then let the developers purchase the others as they always do, if they don’t like the PDFs which come as part of the cost of the DDE or whatever.

¹ With the exception of the latest User Guide, which I probably need to get around to buying.

So, why not just ask ROOL if the community could reimplement it in LaTeX? That way, the book could be stored along the rest of the source, changes could be tracked, issues could be addressed quickly. The standard font in LaTeX is ugly (and layouting in LaTeX takes a bit of effort, admittedly), but there are tonnes of other fonts, perhaps ones that are close enough to the original, and there are a lot of LaTeX enthusiasts out there who like a challenge (myself included).

Anyway, one can dream, right? :)

On the costly fonts I agree do away with them but somewhere along the line it would be good to reward those who put the effort in to update the guide and make it available in legacy paper format.

+1 Hence the reference to reducing the costs of production – most manufacturers try to reduce production costs and the retail price might drop a little, but the aim is more money in the bank.
For ROOL, reducing the former and retaining and maybe reducing the latter is good.
There’s a balance to be struck between production cost + markup and total sales.

So might others who currently have all of the ROOL publications1 on their bookshelf, and who would be less likely to buy more if they drop the production standard

I don’t think dropping the standard was proposed. Dropping expensive fonts and using alternates was the proposal. I believe there were specific alternates suggested.

It’s my belief that the real value in the Guides is the textual content supplemented with pictures.
The old Acorn guides were written by insiders, the current ROOL productions have the benefit of user input to fine tune the information in ways no one other than a user could do.

books are expensive in small numbers if done legally

Hence I said “somewhere along the line it would be good to reward those who put the effort in to update the guide”

That way you make sure quality is still there but how to do that is another issue.

take note a from the RPi foundation’s model. Include a bookshelf within your distribution and publish a paper copy

That is an excellent idea and one that could link in to the real concerns that Steve raised and it is also the approach ROL have with their books on a online shelf

It could in my view also link in to rewarding those who did the work or alternatively as Steve says those who distribute paid for versions of the OS pay to supply it or how about a option that some distros do of a contribution that gives you the documentation as a bonus for that small contribution.

Dropping expensive fonts and using alternates was the proposal.

I’d still like to ask you to put a figure to that, per book, compared to the other overhead costs of a small-run publication (such as meeting the legal requirements).

Hence I said “somewhere along the line it would be good to reward those who put the effort in to update the guide”

What has that got to do with the costs I mentioned? You seem to be adding more costs in to the mix.

So, why not just ask ROOL if the community could reimplement it in LaTeX?

That doesn’t address the legal costs of producing a paper copy, though. The only way to get rid of those costs is to not do the paper copy, and I’d respectfully suggest that such a development might be a retrograde step.

So might others who currently have all of the ROOL publications1 on their bookshelf, and who would be less likely to buy more if they drop the production standard. Compare the ROOL books to the one produced by ROL some years back to see what the difference is.

We are not talking about reducing the standard but using different fonts, which does not mean lowing the standards. I have not suggested we do not have printed versions for those who want them. We need to think more about NEW users who have never used RISC OS before, if the market is to grow.

But we need something to help new users to RISC OS and a PDf Welcome Guide would be a good starter and maybe a PDF version of the user guide offered on new commercially sold computers with the company paying ROOL a fee for the PDF version and an offer to upgrade to a printed version as well. The fee being used to help reduce the cost of a printed version for those who want it.

I have to keep asking do we want to encourage NEW users or not. Telling them to buy a User Guide just to learn how to play with the OS initially is not a good look.

A new user on this very thread has pointed this out.