"The design and implementation of FreeBSD operating system" instead of getting it for free on the web ?
Of course you disagree. I'd also disagree with that.
But that was not my point.
You are comparing apples with pears.
You are comparing a user's short reference manual with a scientific book about systems and principles in general.
You are comparing free electronic books with electronic black copies of hardcopy books.
AFAIK a current up-to-date edition of "The Design and Implementation of FreeBSD Operating System" is legally only available to buy as a hardcopy.
Some of such books sometimes become available electronically for free, when they are outdated and obsolete, and the new edition is published (as a hardcopy to buy.)
The point of
my post was:
Apart from doing it as a learning lesson how to do such a thing at all,
I don't see no real sense in trying to self create a local copy of a book which already is available as a local copy (by a pkg install), or turning an online HTML version of a book into a PDF by yourself, while the package also already delivers the PDF version.
And above all I don't see much sense in printing an user's
short reference manual on paper about an OS, that provides a new version every three months.
Imagine you had a hardcopy of the FreeBSD HB in your shelf you printed yourself two and half years ago.
What would the title say?
"FreeBSD 13.2", that's right.
If you would see that book in my shelf you probably would say to me something like, 'Dude, you are such a caveman. That book is so outdated, so obsolete! We are at 15.0 by now, 15.1 coming soon!'
<[begin assisted thinking]>
Now, how do you think will look the hardcopy of the FreeBSD HB you print today in two or three years in your bookshelf?
Would you rather say,
'WOW, cool! FreeBSD 15.0! Great!'
or would you more tend to say,
'Dude, we already are at 18.2!'
<[end assisted thinking]>
As I said, I also made this mistake myself several times, many years ago. For my excuse I can say it was still in times when - comparing to today - we had very slow internet connections.
<[begin war story]>
Back then I had the
Motorola 28.8 modem. The 28.8 stands for 28.8 kBaud. That's 28,800
bit [sic!] per second [3.6
KibiByte/second], which was the top
possible speed you
may got when using the telephone
landline (wired, copper) to dial into a computer to get internet access by home at all those days. You may compute a MB used almost 5 minutes to download - if the line was clean and not interrupted, e.g. by somebody tried to give you a phone call, e.g. mother again asking with whom I always had those endless telephone calls blocking the line, simply not grapsing the internet. So, you can imagine files with several MB (e.g. handbooks, or even installation disc images) was nothing you just downloaded spontaneously en passant, but planned a bit when do it best, e.g. during the night, when the telefon rates are low and I don't use the computer (At least I wasn't the typical white faced nerd, sleeping the day and sitting all night long at the computer.)
<[end war story]>
So it was a very good idea to have a local copy of such books.
Plus monitors had not the quality, above all not the high resolution they provide today, and computers needed one or two seconds to load a larger file (plus maybe swapping while turning the pages.) So reading a PS/DVI/PDF online in a viewer was not that comfortable as it is today.
But already back then it was stupid to print them all out completely, which I did.
I had several lever arch files containing several handbooks. All wasted paper. Because the frequency I consult those hardcopies didn't match the frequency the according software was updated.
I produced way more scribbling paper I had use for, many, many thousands sheets of paper, plus ink cartridges all for the garbage.
And to warn you to not do the same mistake as me, that was my point.
Neither the FreeBSD foundation, nor the developers, not even the community has any benefit by that. Only the market sells you your next printer, the printer's manufactures, the producers of paper and printing cartridges profit from that - and, as I tried to explain elaborated, not even yourself really.
So, you better do a donation to the foundation instead of wasting your money on producing waste paper and lower the life time of your printer, only.
So, to summerize the lesson (my point):
For sure there are books better have as hardcopies.
But user's short reference manuals are not part of those.
What I can understand is, when somebody found her/his way into FreeBSD and wants to give that proud kind of a small monument. I fully understand that, because I feel the same. But for that I do not print out the handbook, and place it into my shelf. For that I have among others "Absolute FreeBSD" in my book shelf - not only as a monument, but actually a really useful book, worth to have it as a hardocpy. And I have a high quality print of the FreeBSD logo at my wall.
The foundation's shop provides shower curtains, baby's dribble bibs and bathing slippers with the logo, but alas no stickers (at least the last time I checked.) Otherwise my laptop's lid also had a FreeBSD logo attached.
(started 14.1 and excitedly got 14.2's installer from a link somewhere before Announcement)
)
