Experimental Open Textbooks

Contact Information Computer Science, CB 430 University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0430 Email: Gary DOT Nutt AT colorado DOT edu WWW: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~nutt

Hi, and welcome to the prototype of a web site that offers free access to open textbooks.

The nature of textbook publishing has been in flux for the last few years. Increasingly, one can find entire, creditable textbook manuscripts on the web. People can read the book, although usually they are not permitted to use it as the basis for derived work. For example, Addison Wesley published my lab manual on the SSCLI distributed virtual machine middle:w ware as a free book that can be read on the web.

The present experiment pushes the idea a little further toward open textbooks for specialized and/or emerging academic areas: For the past several years I have been working on various versions of manuscripts that focus on operating systems for various classes of small computers. For a variety of reasons (related to the business case that drives commercial publishing), these manuscripts have never been published. I have decided to publish them as experimental open textbook — not only that students can use without cost, but also one in which other people can contribute their expertise to focused bodies of knowledge.

My model for open textbooks is Linux, which is open, but with some control on how content is added to it. I am making a bare bones version of the manuscript available from which other authors can derive work (with appropriate attribution), and which can be integrated back into the base version. The Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License (and similar licenses) is used to create a GPL-like book copyright. Like Linux — and unlike a wiki page — I want to have some control about how the content changes. As people contribute to the base textbook, they will become coauthors — a marvelous opportunity for younger (e.g. untenured) people who don't want to spend two years writing a book from scratch. At any given time, the collection of coauthors will decide which additions and improvements are incorporated into the mainline book, and which are not.

Such an effort is not intended to be a threat to book publishers, since they create and publish traditional textbooks for established markets (I have current, traditional textbooks for sale). Open textbooks do not fit the publishers' requirements because they are too new, too old, do not fit into the curriculum, do not standalone very well, lack polish, are too informal, address Too small of market, etc.

If you think the content on this site is worthwhile it would be helpful for you to link to it, bookmark it, or otherwise recommend it to your friends. Thanks! Feedback is most welcome — ultimately no feedback, suggests that the content is not all that useful (meaning that it will eventually disappear).

Enjoy,
Gary Nutt

CONTENTS Watch for an introductory programming book ... Operating Systems for Single-threaded Computers. Operating Systems for Multi-threaded Computers.

You can find supplementary notes, examples, and exercises here.