- CD-ROM technology is horribly outdated. If you have the kind of attitude that downloads over the Internet are not acceptable means to distribute content at this day and age I can tell you it's not piracy that's making biggest cut to your sales. It's the world moving on. You might want to check out the smartphone app market. I can imagine some go players wanting to read your book on their tablet computer.

There may be more cost uncertainty with online distribution. With CD-ROM technology, you pay only when someone buys. Maintaining an online distribution network requires payment even on months when no one buys. If their sales volume is low and/or irregular, then I can see that CD-ROM distribution might make sense from a risk-reducing perspective.

I seriously doubt that they're using CD-ROMs because of piracy concerns. CD-ROMs are very easy to copy and put online for downloading.

Of course, I presume that downloads are more environmentally friendly... If you care about that sort of thing.

First it's John Fairbairn releasing books only in a proprietary locked-in format that works only on a specific e-Ink device among dozens on the market;

then it's Charles Matthews releasing a book only as part of a huge database of game records;

and people wonder why bittorrent is so popular?

I have bought printed books by both Fairbairn and Matthews. I'm not some kind of evil pirate. I just don't need GoGoD and I can't buy Shape Up from Gobase because Gobase is dead and I can't get it from a Korean website because I don't read Korean. I see only one solution for this...

Edit: I actually see two solutions. I could pirate Shape Up, or I could just live without it. Note that as far as Charles Matthews is concerned, the outcome is exactly the same - he doesn't get anything.

A proprietary locked in format that works on all of the dozens of devices on the market...

Amazon has been very good about porting their software everywhere they can.

I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Would you care to give a source showing that Kindle software works on all of the dozens of e-Ink devices on the market?

(you can't, because it doesn't)

Edit: Maybe you skipped over the word "e-Ink" in my post?

I did not, but I used the adjective in a different way than you intended probably.

Nitpicking, but you got your order wrong there. Charles doesn't do much Go stuff nowadays (though he did make a rare appearance at the club this week).



Well, if you want Shape Up there is a 3rd choice: buy GoGoD and throw all those useless SGFs in the bin. Maybe you think £20 is too much for a book in pdf form, but that's your value judgement. The fact you don't want the rest of GoGoD doesn't prevent you from buying it for Shape Up. And this option I doubt Charles gets anything either, other than knowing his work is supporting what he presumably views as a worthy cause.

When I follow the link Matthews mentioned as approved there are plain links to the pdf chapters in English.
No knowledge of Korean seems to be needed...

Am I missing something?

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"The connection between the language in which we program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close" -- Bjarne Stoustrup

I'm as big a fan of free-form whining as the next fellow, so I'm very much in sympathy with your post - but did you follow the link to the Korean site that Charles Matthews posted?

I did not. Ha! That makes it easier

You raise an interesting question. But its interest is mainly for go publishers. I'm not one of those, and my dealings with go publishers, and would-be go publishers, in the past, were unsatisfactory, to put it mildly. I don't "have" any sales of this work. I think I sold about five copies of "Shape Up!", total.

The main issue seemed to be this, in the past. Go publishers in English didn't have a large, thriving market, when it was just books: a print run of say 3000 would take 10 years to clear the warehouse. The books that would really raise the standard of Western go weren't what the publishers were concerned with; easier to reproduce material produced for go fans in East Asia. (Exception: James Davies for Ishi Press.)

Now the chance of electronic distribution ought to have changed matters. Western go authors weren't exactly encouraged in that past time, though (I except JF, who would be hard to discourage, and he has some stories to tell ...) There have been some other problems built into go material since the mid-60s (false analogies with chess, for one).

I think go material has still not yet been fully "localised" for the Western market. I hope it will be.

Anyway, I got discouraged a while ago as a go writer. The GoGod disc is a fantastic tool; and if you are going to be technically snobbish, you are hampering your development as a player, however much street cred your premium hardware gets you.

Hi Charles, first of all, I learned Go from your book, Teach Yourself Go, which I bought at a brick-and-mortar store (the biggest bookstore chain in Canada). It was a great book and I'm much obliged. I would definitely buy your other books if I came across them.

Second, just some reality check here: Many modern computers don't have a CD-ROM drive, to say nothing of smartphones and tablets. It's hardly technical snobbery if a normal computer you bought at a normal store is not equipped to read CDs, or for that matter floppies.

Hi Charles, just wanted to thank you for your work. It has certainly improved my game. Your experience, unfortunately, is a good example of why supporting folks like you is so important. The worst part, at least from my perspective, is that we'll never know what your next Go book might have been.

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

This comment annoys me, for two reasons.

Firstly, are you aware that CD-ROM drives are being slowly phased out by some large computer manufacturers? I don't think I remember the last time I held a CD or a DVD in my hand, because they're useless lumps of plastic that have since been superseded, but more importantly than my opinion is that this opinion is very widespread. This means that it's (slowly) becoming harder and harder to buy machines that will read CDs. It is technological snobbery to publish valuable resources in only a single medium which some people cannot access. It is not technological snobbery to ask for it to be made more widely available.

Secondly, I spend an hour or more on the train most days, and I can carry small objects around (e.g. phones, tablets or books), but I obviously can't carry large ones (like heavy laptops or desktop computers). So, if I actually want to make that time useful, GoGoD is pointless, because I have to leave it at home. My time is better spent if I pay twice as much money on far less information by buying a single go book - which I simply can't afford to do, so I don't do it. The inability to find cheap, portable resources which are a good use of both my time and my money is hampering my development as a player.

Should we look forward to GoGoFD (Go Games on Flash Drive)?

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I would like to be able to look forward to a completely medium-agnostic, platform-agnostic Go Games.

CMAPAGG.

Hmmm, doesn't quite roll off the tongue as eloquently as GoGoD, but then I grew up in Minnesota.

_________________
"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

Agnostic? Hmmmm.

How about GoGoDless?

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Any buyer who has asked me for delivery on a USB device has, naturally, received it that way. I have been looking at switching entirely for some time and I will keep it under review.

[Minor rant] Anybody here should know that both John and I are fairly responsive to the members of the Go community. It pisses me off slightly that a number of posters above seemed to assume that we would take no notice of the fact that some people could not buy GoGoD and would do nothing about it. [/rant]

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk