If you feel inclined to contribute to this project, please contact us via email (See Contacts, below) with your ideas. I will thoughtfully consider any and all constructive criticism, suggestions, and content, no matter how small or "insignificant" in your estimation. Your ideas are important, as they allow this project to become better than anything one person could make alone. Bear in mind, though, that any work contributed to this project falls under the terms and conditions of the Design Science License and is by definition "copylefted" for maximum public benefit. Any content you develop for this project is your intellectual property, but may be freely copied and distributed by anyone along with my work.
Listed below are several pages of information pertinent to contributors. As with everything else on this project, you are encouraged to submit suggestions for improvement regarding contributor policy. Being that the whole phenomenon of "open" books is rather novel, participants in this project or others like it are pioneers of a sort. Together we will explore this brave new world of writing and publishing, figuring out what works and what doesn't as we go! For questions others have asked try this thread at www.allaboutcircuits.com.
Contacts: Your primary point of contact is now ([email protected]), the maintainer of this archive. If you want more information on the recent changes in administration, read this thread at www.allaboutcircuits.com. If you really need to contact Tony Kuphaldt, click on his name above his avtar in the above thread. This will take you to a page where you can send a "personal message" or "email". You can also read Tony's comments on the index page of this site, and follow the "good news" and "bad news" links.
Writing guidelines for authors
Design Science License Be sure to read this legal document thoroughly before contributing to the project!
One restriction beyond the Design Science License that I feel compelled to place upon contributors is a prohibition against the use of non-free software in the authoring of this book series. The fundamental principle is this: anyone should be free to "compile" the source code of this book series and fully explore the circuit simulations shown therein without having to pay for any software, or be bound by any legal restrictions regarding copying or distribution. This does not necessarily mean that all software need be copylefted (open-source), but that it must be freely available and executable by anyone.
Examples of unacceptable software use include showing circuit simulations or general simulations in any of the books using software such as Pspice, MultiSim, Saber, Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, where readers could not explore the same simulations without having to pay for the use of that software. Also, if anyone modifies the book in such a way that compilation of the source files cannot be done without the use of non-free software (i.e. all source files translated into Quark format, and released as such), this is unacceptable as well. The use of free, but closed-source, software within the text such as Constantin Zeldovich's Winscope program is acceptable, because there are no restrictions other than that its use being non-commercial (commercial use requires a fee be paid to Dr. Zeldovich).
I will not prohibit the use of proprietary software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Visio, or AutoCAD for the creation of illustrations to accompany contributed text, or with using non-free text editing software to type the text, because no one who reads these books or "compiles" the source files into a readable format would have any need to use the same software. Any software whose operation is discussed in the text as an aid to understanding circuit analysis, though, should be freely accessible to readers. Otherwise, some readers will be excluded from the full educational benefit of the books, and perhaps from contributing to the project, by their inability to purchase the necessary software.
Having said this, though, I would prefer that all contributors use the same application software that I do (most notably, Xcircuit for illustrations), so that there is consistency in the appearance of all the books, and so all developers will be able to modify the source files thus created without having to purchase expensive software.
This restriction regarding non-free software is not legally binding. It is merely a standard that I will vigilantly maintain with regard to accepting contributions to the "official" version of the book hosted at www.ibiblio.org. If anyone wants to convert the book to Quark format, and/or substitute Pspice simulations in place of the existing public-domain Spice software simulations, they are legally free to do so. The Design Science License merely states that all source files for the books, before and after modification by contributors, be freely accessible to all.