John R. Culleton wrote:
I may have missed it on the mailing list, but I don't think anyone has commented on this book, and I don't see an announcement on the website either. Since, as far as I know, this is the first Inkscape book to be published, I'd say that it should deserve a bit of publicity.
The book by Tavmong Bah is available as an e-book from Lulu. The book by de Castro Guerra is apparently only available in the French language. I battled that language for several years at the University of San Francisco, and I lost. And that was a half century ago.
I agree... partially. Inkscape has a lot of potential users where I live, but not many of them speak english. I am sure that the case will be similar in France, so a book in french fills a void that that e-book did not cover.
Now, although I have never been taught french, I was able to read most of the book. But then, I have the advantage of already speaking several romance languages. Because I am sure that not many people outside France (my friends don't speak French either) will be interested in a book written in french, I wish it were translated.
But the language of the book isn't my point. The stress I think that should be put on the publishing of this book is that it is a physical book (we all know that e-books just don't are viewed under the same light by the main public), and produced by a major publisher. It also targets a generous amount of people --- Free Software is strong in France, and France has a reasonably large population.
In other words -- the interest in having it known that this book has been published lies not so much on the book itself (which is good) but on the fact that it is another sign of prestige for Inkscape, that the program is good enough that there is a certain demand for books on the matter.
Even shorter: it's Inkscape publicity.
Denís.