Professor Creates His Own Cisco Manual 318
yootje writes "ZDnet is running a story about a professor who made his own Cisco networking textbook, with 800 pages: "Computing instructor Matt Basham's suggestions for improving Cisco Systems' official training manuals fell on deaf ears for years. But he appears to have the networking giant's attention now." The professor made his book available for free on his website."
This should happen more often (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Insightful)
He's the owner of the material, and I seriously doubt that he can be sued for anything at all.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:2)
Oracle Benchmark Perallel? (Score:2)
Does the license for using / touching / seeing / feeling a Cisco router contain language that prevents dissemination of this type of info? Doesn't Oracle have a license that says you can't release benchmark information?
Re:Oracle Benchmark Perallel? (Score:3, Informative)
The benchmark restriction is because benchmarks are relative, and not necessarily indicative of performance. "SELECT * FROM table" is not relative. It does what it says.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know where you got your info from but Java is NOT ECMA standardized and as for .net, only the CLR and C# langauge are ECMA standardized.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:2)
I don't know where you got your info from but Java is NOT ECMA standardized
My guess is its the standard let's-confuse-Java-with-JavaScript. You would not believe the number of times I've realised half-way through a conversation that the other party is really talking about a scripting language.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Informative)
What you're basically saying is that you cannot write about how you configure a Cisco router? What about books like these [amazon.co.uk] ? I would be very surprised if Cisco demanded licencse from the "Dummies" series, just as an example.
And just to add to what the others have said, Java and VB
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need permission from anybody to publish an API. There is no special copyright law covering API specifications.
Perhaps you are thinking of trade-secret status?
Well, if something has been publicly published, it doesn't doesn't get trade-secret status. And that goes even if they put some silly 'license' on their documentation.
(See for instance the BSDi case, where the Unix sources were found not to have trade-secret status without even being public, but simply because they had been seen by so many people. And that is despite the fact that they even had written agreements with all of them.)
You don't have to get a license to publish an original book on anything, ever.
Do you know what a license is? A license is permission from a rights-holder to exercise an otherwise exclusive right.
For copyright, that means performing, reproducing and creating derivatives of copyrighted material.
For patents, that means the right to manufacture and use the invention.
For trade-secrets, that means the right to divulge and use commercially the trade secret.
Now, if I chose not to publish my API secret, then it may be a trade-secret, in which case you may not have the right to publish it if you happen to be 'in' on it. APIs can however be reverse-engineered. You can reverse-engineer an API without any trade-secret knowledge (i.e. 'clean-room') and publish that, that is perfectly legal.
Perhaps you think that the API itself can be copyrighted, and that a description of the API is a derivative work? Well, that's a theory, but very dubious legally.
Under copyright law, code is separated into the "expressional" and "functional" parts, and APIs reasonably always fall into the latter part, and are therefore not copyrightable. In case law, good room is generally given for compatibility code, being functional. (Again, you can see the BSDi case, where it was found that header files describing the same Unix API were not infringing)
If the API itself is not copyrighted, something which has yet to be seen, the description of the API cannot be a derivative work.
Naturally, the description itself can be copyrighted, including the official description, (e.g. the API specification) but anyone can write their own description.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't like the DMCA, but you should read exactly what [harvard.edu] it prohibits.
The DMCA prohibits "circumvention of copyright protection systems". No matter how you look at it, that's a very different thing from a general ban on reverse-engineering.
The most draconian interpretation possible is to assume that it prohibits reverse-engineering of copyright protection measures. But that's it. And it explicitly allows circumvention for interoperability purposes.
Without getting farther
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:4, Insightful)
And their product manuals are available for free on their site. Another wise investment, and a very inexpensive one.
About the only areas where he'd have to be careful is others' copyrighted material (as mentioned above) and use of others' trademarks. Prof.s learn early how to avoid those problems or they don't remain prof.s very long.
Now, if cisco didn't like this, they *could* apply pressure through the institution's relationship with them as a training site. But it sounds like they are going to avoid PR disaster and work with the author instead of against him. Good for them. I and my shares approve of listening to customers' concerns about our documentation.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:3, Interesting)
If he'd called it _The Official cisco Systems New CCNA/CCNP Training Book_ then they'd likely have grounds for complaint.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:4, Insightful)
In this day and age, laws are irrelevant. You just have to be able to financially afford more time in court.
Scratch the "in this day and age" part, though...it's always been true.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so sure this is the best idea hes dumbed down the manual to make room for the computer illiterate.. shoehorning students with no technical background into a network administration course seems like a bit of a waste.
There is a lot to be said for having a sepperate class to teach the basics.
Me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:2)
Not responsive in what way? In not publishing the CCNA coursework for free? This is not some revolutionary text where none ever existed, it's a CCNA study manual. There are literally dozens of these, from every technical publishing house known to man, including Cisco Press. His is just cheaper than the others.
I don't get what Cisco is supposed to be contrite about. They publish and print textbooks for courses they design. Th
Re:This should happen more often (Score:2)
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Informative)
<quote>Before publishing the book on his own, Basham said he had contacted Cisco Press about publishing it, but it wasn't interested. After his free book appeared online last week, however, the company contacted him via e-mail requesting a meeting to discuss the program at St. Petersburg College.
Company spokeswoman Goodwin said that Cisco is always looking for ways to improve the program.
She said that although instructors are required to teach the Cisco Academy curriculum, they are welcome to supplement it as necessary. She also emphasized that none of the Cisco Academy students are required to buy any of the textbooks from Cisco.
"Cisco has a long-standing relationship with St. Petersburg College," she said. "And we have a process-oriented quality assurance program with the (Cisco) Academy where we work collaboratively with institutions to solicit feedback. We are continually making improvements based on customer needs."</quote>
Cisco obviously thinks this is as cool as most of us think it is.
Re:This should happen more often (Score:5, Interesting)
Eeeeek... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh the horror... The horror...
Please, Mr Matt Basham, release this as a PDF, RTF or HTML file... Anything but Word. I ma willing to help if needed.
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:3, Funny)
OpenOffice save as PDF rocks.
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:3, Informative)
Also...I've noticed that sometimes opening Word documents created in OpenOffice end up with "unsupported characters" everywhere. What causes that?
Re:Eeeeek... -- Looks good in OpenOffice 1.1.2 (Score:5, Informative)
-m
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:2, Informative)
And why is that? You can download a free Word viewer here [microsoft.com].
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:2)
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:5, Funny)
So it's only three pages long? Somehow I expected more.
get HTML here (Score:2)
Re:Eeeeek... (Score:2)
Re:Stop your bashing. (Score:4, Informative)
It eliminates the drawbacks of MS Word (can handle easily large (>500 pages) documents,
Still Wondering (Score:5, Interesting)
If just one state would sit down and even purchase some good works and make them freely available for modification and distribution, then the cost of education would be greatly reduced. Profs would be free to make changes at it fits their style so long as those changes are re-posted to the public. Students could read the texts online and/or print them.
What am I not seeing here?
Re:Still Wondering (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Insightful)
I and my classmates did the same thing. We found that it took about the same amount of time (or longer depending on how much beer was involved) but we learned the material better, since we had to know it well enough to explain it clearly.
All it takes is time (Score:4, Interesting)
If I recall correctly, not too long ago some folks had the bright idea of ordering their books from Canada/UK. Seems that the same exact textbooks there cost up to 50% less than in the states.
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
And later that same thread . .
You're exactly right about getting kick-backs . . .
Oh, yeah! I'm a professor, and you should see the stuff we get from the textbook people: hot and cold runnin
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
Not very much money in collge publishing compared to elementary school and high school. Richard Feinman recorded in great detail how, as a member of the California state textbook review panel (at least at that time, all textbooks used in California public schools needed the approval of
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Informative)
It is true that she receives more textbooks every year than she can possibly read/investigate, at least for her changing a text book is more a very deliberate process. She's an Accounting professor, and she does change text books quite often. However, instead of some
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't know about the cost saving thing, but wouldn't having a "freely modifiable" text book defeat the purpose of having standardized text books? If the bible thumpers in the midwest were free to remove objectionable references to Darwin and the PC nuts in the west were free to remove text that didn't match their PC creed
Re:Still Wondering (Score:4, Insightful)
of course, this relates mostly to elementary school & high school...obviously once you get into college, many teachers don't even use text books to begin with...
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2, Insightful)
Standard teaching material doesn't lead to a correction of skewed viewpoints. It just makes sure we only have ONE skewed viewpoint.
---------------
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2)
* Yeah, yeah. Some things have changed. But not $200 worth of things
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Informative)
They simply see a book they like, call up the publisher and identify who they are who they work for and they have a class of 300+ stupid first year students next semester/year and the reading material is not set for this course yet.
They then drop the names of a book from a competitor and say they have recently read that. By noon the next day there is a fed ex. package with a letter l
Re:Still Wondering (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia is very close.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Still Wondering (Score:4, Informative)
Oh! Oh! I know! That the government isn't the answer to all problems?
But that's just the Libertarian in me talking.
In all seriousness, if you really think that this is a good idea consider pitching in to make it happen. I have my own project to this end, the Free Curriculum Project [nongnu.org].
I also help out a bit with another, Free High School Science Texts [nongnu.org].
I know that both or either project would sincerely appreciate your help.
Both are focused on High School texts. Mine is biased to the United States of America, the other is South African.
-Peter
as html (Score:5, Informative)
but is anyone wants the 5 meg html version it here [66.102.7.104]
Re:as html (Score:2)
Re:as html (Score:2)
Near monopolies considered harmful (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Near monopolies considered harmful (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Near monopolies considered harmful (Score:3, Informative)
BTW I thin the cisco press books are actualy quite good on a lot of subjects,
Re:Near monopolies considered harmful (Score:2, Insightful)
A certain popular DB company comes to mind. If anyone could set one up, more people would see that simpler solutions (mySQL, SQLite, etc.) would fit the bill 90% of the time, but as it is DBA functions are typically controlled in a company by a cabal that is heavily invested in their hard-won knowledge of a
This is about certifications (Score:5, Insightful)
finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:finally (Score:3, Informative)
Re:finally (Score:3, Interesting)
The presentation and session layers are lumped into TCP/IP's application layer where they belong. How then, does teaching the OSI model, where these two layers are explicit, help in the student's understanding of network protocols? What useful purpose does teaching the concepts of presentation and sessions have when they are almost orthoganol to the topic at hand? (I'm struggli
Re:finally (Score:5, Informative)
It's good to know how the OSI model works, especially when troubleshooting tricky layer 2, 3, and 4 network issues. That being said, when I took the CCNA test they only had about 2 questions on it. They were something like "Which of the following are layers in the OSI model" or something really basic like that. Anyway, my instructor had a really good way to remember the OSI model that I still remember to this day (took the class in 1997):
All People Seem To Need Data Processing.
The letters in this saying correspond very nicely with the layers in the OSI model:
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data Link
Physical
Hope this helps those of you studying for your CCNAs (judging by enrollment numbers in these college courses, there's a lot of you.)
Great pricing scheme (Score:4, Informative)
Useful Contribution (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that this is a very useful contribution to anyone who is looking for information on Cisco networking. It's definately a "middle finger" to big companies who are so set in their ways, they are unwilling to take advice from people in the field who have the qualifications and experience to make a genuine contribution to their documentation.
In many ways, it also reflects the spirit of the Free Software movement, in many respects. It reflects the frustration of a constant refusal to fix issues with something released in what is, in certain respects, a proprietary format, and the result of writing a version, which is then distributed for free. It's good to see :)
Speaking of which, I wonder if Mr Basham could be convinced to release the text under a free license, like the GNU FDL... possibly not, if he has already made arrangements with publishers, but it might be worth looking into...
What??? (Score:4, Funny)
Networks need manuals? I thought you just had to make sure no-one knocked the patch cables out.
Re:What??? (Score:5, Funny)
Bad Self Publishing (Score:4, Interesting)
Self-published textbooks will only work when some sort of feedback mechanism is in place to offer an indication of the quality of the book.
For years, at the University of South Florida in Tampa, the engineering college subjected undergraduates to an extremely poor thermodynamics text self-published by an influential department chair until the thermo scores started to slide on the state EIT exams.
Re:Bad Self Publishing (Score:3, Interesting)
I would challenge the notion that there is a distinct category of books that are self-published. To some extent the categories of publisher and self-publisher are anachronistic.
I've made the argument that there is no such thing as self-publishing [salutor.com] in more detail elsewhere, but to summarize:
Cisco books... (Score:5, Informative)
I imagine that a large number of people who have never read Jeff Doyle's "Routing TCP/IP" Vols. I & II, or Kennedy Clark's "Cisco LAN Switching" will comment about this article - read any dense technical manual by either of the above, or Bassam Halabi, or Priscilla Oppenheimer, or any non-entry level book, and see what I mean.
Besides, all of the entry-level Cisco knowledge focuses on the OSI model and BASIC network troubleshooting. If you REALLY wanted to learn that and not be led by the hand thru a technical school, you would read "TCP/IP Illustrated" by W. Richard Stevens.
Re:Cisco books... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cisco books... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree wholeheartedly. Especially Basam Hallabi's Internet Routing Architectures. (No affiliate link) This book taught me how to establish BGP routing policies, and is considered fundamental reading by almost anyone on NANOG.
Certified (Score:2, Funny)
I got my CCNA simply to understand networking better and the environment at work. The company paid for a CCNP class so I felt I had to give it a shot and got my CCNP 5 months after the class ended. Now that I have to recert, I'm studying the Switch/Router books and, even though I didn't work as a network engineer, much of the material is familiar.
Do you know what they call someone who received the lowest
Those publishers really funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Those publishers really funny (Score:2)
I regularly purchase books for under $20, slightly used. Don't let the cover price scare you.
Re:Those publishers really funny (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
That takes balls.
here it is in HTML form (Score:5, Informative)
After clicking on a link below, click on "View as HTML" on the resulting page.
Preface:p college.edu%2Fstar%2Fcisco%2FMatt%2Fpreface.doc [google.com]
http://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.s
Textbook:p college.edu%2Fstar%2Fcisco%2FMatt%2Ftextbook.doc [google.com] *
http://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.s
It's a gigantic HTML file and may give your browser fits, but at least it's not a MS Word doc file.
[* looks like Google hasn't parsed that big doc into HTML yet, maybe they will soon now :) ]
PDF File (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.lehigh.edu/~mlt3/textbook.pdf [lehigh.edu]
Save your school (Score:5, Informative)
(could only squeeze 48K/sec off your school..)
Hah! This is a research project (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't a new thing....is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Several years ago, when I was studying for my certs, I decided to compile all my material into a book.
It has since grown into two separate books, one for the CCNA and one for the CCIE.
While they used to be free, I decided to begin charging a small fee (10 bux), but only enough to cover the costs of my website -- incidentally, I've never really been able to recoup that.
If anyone is interested, the books, along with loads of free material are available (both online and downloadable) at gdd.net [gdd.net].
Please note that I do like for folks to register, but it is free and rather painless
Word?! Yikes. (Score:4, Informative)
Once upon a time, Word really stuggled with documents over 256 pages. I'm sure that's fixed, but what about revision control, and single point of truth? Surely it has to be a pain to incorporate all your examples in the Word document as copies of what you were really using.
Does someone have a good place to chuck it in PDF form? I'd be quite happy to render it from Word to PDF. (At least that's slightly less evil).
Screenshots of websites? (Score:3, Insightful)
459 pages is the page count of this book... at least.. that's what MS Word 2k is telling me.
This book sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
-
Lesson 1: Finding CISCO's web site.
-
Lesson 2: Opening a "MS-DOS" window on Windows 95/98. (Not an NT-family OS, even though this is a corporate networking class.)
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Lesson 3: Installing a network card. ("Try to see how a Token Ring NIC differs from an Ethernet NIC.")
-
A little further along, there are chapters on binary arithmetic, hex arithmetic, IP addressing, and the symbols Cisco uses in their manuals.
Then, immediately after the chapter on IP addressing, things suddenly get complicated:
-
You are the network administrator for an upstart website publishing company. They have
offices in two adjacent buildings on different floors. Lately, they have realized the costs
of their individual Internet accounts far exceeds the costs of installing and maintaining a
T-1 line. As the network guru you are to design a network that will utilize FDDI between
the buildings. The west building uses floors 3, 4, and 5 for the sales and admin staff.
Here you will want to use a CISCO Catalyst 5000 with a FDDI module, a management
module, and a 24-port switch module. From there each floor will distribute access via a
CISCO 1924 switch to each of its 20 nodes (workstations, servers, and printers). The east
building uses floors 1 through 5 for the design and engineering staff. Here you will want
to use a CISCO Catalyst 5500 with a FDDI module, a management module, and a 24-port
switch module. You will also have a CISCO 2610 router with T-1 module, and a
Kentrox CSU/DSU for your full T-1 line. Your ISP, ComBase has sold you two blocks
of 62 IP addresses: 198.74.56.x (1-62) and (65-126). Combase will also provide the DNS
services, unlike most ISP's where more than 24 IP's are ordered. Design your network,
including cabling and grounds, to include all IP's, subnet masks, gateways, and anything
else you need to include.
Some quotes:This is before they've mentioned how to configure, operate or use any of that stuff. Wierd.
"Supercomputer--See Nasa, Berkely, MIT, etc. Kind of like the W.O.P.R. in Wargames."
Re:This book sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Save the schools - mirror here! :P (Score:3)
The PDF format [pbp.net]
Leech away.
Word file? (Score:3, Informative)
You get what you pay for? (Score:4, Insightful)
Layer 5: The Session Layer... This is the layer that says "HEY!" I want to establish a networking session. In fact, if you have internet access from your home computer then you may even see the message "establishing session" during the connection process.
That's just wrong. The OSI model is different from what actually happens in the TCP/IP protocol stack. The Presentation and Session layers aren't actually present in the real TCP/IP world, so claiming that something happens there is incorrect. That "establishing session" message is taking place either at the Application or Transport levels, but not at the non-existant Session layer.
In addition, his informal prose ("old school", "friggin", etc...) gave the book a definite unprofessional feel; some people may think the book is more accessible this way, but I felt that it was a bit sloppy.
Re:Save download times (Score:2)
It's over 500 pages, so not really postable to
Re:Save download times (Score:2)
Re:DMCA Anyone? (Score:2)
Oh Gawd! - mentifex kook has escaped usenet asylum (Score:2)