This exactly. I'm actually really surprised that so many people here who are head-deep in the open-source software community think that books are somehow differ

This exactly. I'm actually really surprised that so many people here who are head-deep in the open-source software community think that books are somehow different. Is restricting the use of your software or the blog post you spent a long time researcher or whatever to paying customers really want you want? When I write software I want the most people I can reach to use it. I get a kick out of people finding my software useful. The world we live in now with a huge universe of free software is a bazzilion times better than the world of the 1980s when I started programming. I want the same for other industries. Pay people to live and let them do what they enjoy. Some of them will create stuff for others.