2012-06-25

Some licensing changes to the source code

When originally published, the code from TLPI was licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.

One reader commented that they are using one of my library functions as part of their everyday "toolbox" of handy pieces of code. As things currently stand, that would mean that if they redistributed any code that linked against that function or ran that code as part of a larger network application, then the complete source code of their application would also need to be licensed under the Affero GPL (i.e., all source code linked to my library functions would also need to be distributed).

That scenario wasn't really my intention (I'd overlooked the case of library functions in my code). So, I've now relicensed the library functions in TLPI under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3. The relicensing applies to all files in the lib/ directory of the source code distribution, and the changed licenses are already present in the latest source code tarball and online versions of the programs that went up in an update of the web site a couple of weeks ago.

Aside from the licensing changes, it's worth mentioning that since publication of TLPI, I've made a number of small fixes to various example programs. The fixes are listed in the CHANGES file that is distributed as part of the source code tarball.

2012-06-22

Korean translation of TLPI available soon

The Korean publisher Acorn is completing the final pieces in the production of the Korean translation of TLPI, which should be published next month.

The translation will be published in two volumes that together run to nearly 2000 pages. As well as splitting the book into two volumes, the chapters are reorganized somewhat. Chapters 29 to 33 (POSIX threads) of the English original move to a later position in the translation, so that they form the start of the second volume. (In a two-volume version, this reordering seemed a little better both to the publisher and to me.) The two volumes are thus:
The two volumes will be sold both separately (priced respectively at 50,000 and 35,000 South Korean won), and as a two-volume package (79,000 won).

Considering that translation work began just 18 months ago, the speed of publication is impressive. One of the things that assisted was that the translation was the work of a team of translators.

It is of course an honor and a pleasure to see my book translated, for which I thank both the publisher and translators. Among the translators, a special thanks to Kiju Kim (nontechnical private blog), who kept me up to date on progress and also submitted a number of error reports on the English original while translating. And though I'll never be able to read them, I look forward to being able to hold copies of the Korean translation in some weeks.