Posted on September 18, 2009 - by jono
The Art of Community Available For Free Download
When I started work on The Art of Community I was really keen that it should be a body of work that all communities have access to. My passion behind the book was to provide a solid guide to building, energizing and enabling pro-active, productive and enjoyable communities. I wanted to write a book that covered the major areas of community leadership, distilling a set of best practices and experiences, and illustrated by countless stories, anecdotes and tales.
But to give this book real value, I was keen to ensure the book could be freely accessed and shared. I wanted to not only break down the financial barrier to the information, but also enable communities to share it to have the content be as useful as possible in the scenarios, opportunities and problems that face them. To make this happen O’Reilly needed to be on board to allow the book to be freely copied and shared, in an era in which these very freedoms threaten the publishing world.
But they came through. Thanks to the incredible support of Andy Oram, my founding editor for the book, O’Reilly were hugely supportive of the project and our desire to break down these barriers.
Today I am pleased to announce the general availability of The Art Of Community under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.
With this license that the book is under you have the following freedoms with the entire content:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to Remix — to adapt the work
…with a few requirements:
- Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
- Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
- Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
While the book is ready to download right now, the book is available to buy in print, on Kindle, and other electronic book formats and I would like to encourage you to buy a printed copy of the book for a few reasons:
- Firstly, buying a copy sends a tremendous message to O’Reilly that they should continue to publish books (a) about community and (b) under a Creative Commons license.
- Secondly, it will encourage O’Reilly to invest in a second edition of the book down the line, which will in turn mean that communities around the world will have a refreshed and updated edition that is available to them.
- Thirdly, aside from the voting-with-your-feet side of things, it is just a really nice book to own in print. It is really well made, looks stunning and feels great to curl up with in a coffee shop or on the couch.
The book is available to buy on all the major Amazon sites:
Even if you don’t buy it, I would be hugely grateful that if you like it, please go and review it on Amazon. This is a hugely contribution. Thanks!
You can download the The Art of Community here.
61 Comments
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September 18, 2009
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Good Stuff Jono. I think I’ve started becoming a fan, finally, after LUGRadio and FLOSS Weekly and now the book.
I’m glad you decided to make it freely available.
And No, it doesn’t make you seem desparate (JK
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September 18, 2009
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I’ve just ordered this book. It’s so great!! Thank you, Jono.
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September 18, 2009
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Also just ordered your book.
Kudos for the openness and sharing.
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September 18, 2009
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Fascinating to read and very useful for anyone who’s a part of any community.
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September 18, 2009
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Yikes! I just ordered the book yesterday (my first book order from Amazon)!
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September 19, 2009
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I am a rank beginner and I was looking for this exact information. Lucky for me I found your site at the beginning of my searching.
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September 19, 2009
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awesome art
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September 19, 2009
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Yeah … Here people used to say: ABC teach – in all hut shout:).
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September 19, 2009
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Even though I knew there was a strong possibility that you would release this under some form of CC (I would have been very surprised if you hadn’t, keeping in mind the nature of your work), I still ordered a paper copy the day it became available for a couple of the very reasons you listed toward the end of your post. In my mind, it’s also kind of like the deal with Ubuntu CDs. You can either download it for free, or you can buy one from the shop. To my mind, if you have the means to purchase something like this, then by all means why not do it? This is motivation for the creator and also demonstrates proof that demand exists for such information, which facilitates and encourages their creators to continue to produce such great work. If you have not yet purchased a copy, I strongly encourage you to do so. I’m about halfway through it, and not only have I gleaned information valuable to my work in the free software community, but also tools which I can add to my kit in my day to day job as a manager. It’s just a great book all the way around, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who has to deal with people issues in almost any capacity.
Thanks, Jono, your work is very much appreciated.
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September 19, 2009
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Jono i guess theartofcommunity.org website is overloaded. I keep getting the following error:-
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September 19, 2009
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Hi
not all your books are CC and cheap ..
http://www.amazon.de/Water-Efficiency-Plant-Biological-Sciences/dp/1405114347/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1253354198&sr=1-6
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September 19, 2009
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Tom, wrong Bacon..
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September 19, 2009
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BTW http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/ needs a bigger host. It does not respond.
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September 19, 2009
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Why, oh why has it bo be 30 euro on amazon.de but only $34 on .us?
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September 19, 2009
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35€ from amazon.co.uk and 30€ from amazon.com to an EU state :/
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September 19, 2009
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Hey Jono,
I’m so glad to see your book released in this way (heard about it through FLOSS Weekly). I’m a grad student in Paris studying “civil society development” and I’ve just started a student club to promote the use of Free and Open Source software on campus. Your book will be a big help to me practically as I try to build FOSS awareness at my university and maybe it’ll play a part in my studies as well.
Glad to see your webmaster sorted the bandwidth problem, too!
-Am
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September 19, 2009
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It’s 2.27 megabytes. That info is useful for those with limited bandwidth. Please consider putting that info next to similar links. It promotes polite behavior, like using ‘at’ to schedule large downloads off-peak. Thanks.
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September 20, 2009
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Yep, you are so right. Thanks for posting this interesting article.
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September 21, 2009
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I’m intrigued.
As a Free software evangelist I would have thought you’d be against publishing your book on Amazon’s defective-by-design Kindle e-book platform.
Was that O’Reilly’s idea or yours?
Looking forward to reading my downloaded copy and lending the dead-tree version to my boss when it arrives.
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September 22, 2009
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I evangelize free software, but I am not against using non-free software devices and options. I own a Kindle and I love it, but I was really keen to have a free version available too. As such, everyone is happy: you can buy a book, a Kindle version or download a free PDF. I am also planning an audio book.
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October 28, 2009
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When do you hope to have an audio book available?
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September 23, 2009
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Thank you very much Jono for this CC-move. Can’t wait to read the chapter called Communicating clearly (that’s been one of my mottos since day 1, putting a lot of emphasis on great communication skills, and applying the theory of cats & dogs roles
)
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October 23, 2009
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Hi guy’s, it’s nice Article and i like this article because it provide Art of Community Available For Free so people can easily see the different art…
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November 24, 2009
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Jono, Thanks for a great book. I’ve included the link on my site, Loads of Linux Links, under Advocacy and Documentation–Publications–Books. Hope this gives you more publicity.
Cheers, Barbara
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December 7, 2009
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just read about your effort thru the UK’s .net magazine, and have already circulated your link to my friends and colleagues . in our local efforts to assist our respective creative communities, all perspectives are most appreciated, particularly one of such experience. thank you