Re: The PDF generator on the toolserver has implications for quality control on a per-chapter basis

I have Adobe Acrobat Pro, so when I've done PDFs in the past I use
that and the results are typically very good and very accurate. i know
that most other people don't have access to it (I only have a license
through school). The PDF generator on the toolserver is a great idea,
and though there are some problems, I thnk it's a great start. A few
points/retorts:

> Do we need stable versions. I don't really see the need. Perhaps
>someone could give examples of stable books that have deteriorated due
>to the ease of editing.

It has nothing to do with deterioration over time, it has more to do
with the stable dependability that teachers and students will depend
on over a semester. A teacher needs to be able to say "The homework is
on page 95", and have all the faith in the world that page 95 today is
the same as page 95 tomorrow. With that said, "stable versions" is
basically a misnomer, because they aren't stable in a general sense,
only with respect to a particular audience. That is, we could get a
request that says "i'm teaching X class, and i want Y book to be
stable for the duration of the semester." We could then create a
stabilized version of that book for use in the class, while continuing
to develop the book on the wiki in the background.

In short, the editing never stops, and students/teachers have the
stability that they need in order to use our books in their
classrooms.

> Further, if we do, then are PDF versions the way we want to do it.

I think so, at least in part. PDF versions have the benefit that they
can be set up the way we want them (with the GFDL text automatically
included where it needs to be), etc. Also, PDFs can be downloaded to
people who don't have guaranteed internet access, it can be
distributed on CD, etc. Generating a PDF can be a pain in the ass too,
but I think that having to make copies of pages, protect them, tag
pages with a notice that "there is a protected version at..." can be
just as big a pain in the ass. If we have a "good" PDF generator tool
on the toolserver that we can use automagically, then it might
actually be a better option, at least in terms of effort involved.

I like the method we have now, where books have printable versions (on
wiki) and PDF versions. If we also had stable versions (especially if
we had a tool for automagically creating such versions without
requiring lots of copying, page protecting, etc), that would just be a
bonus. In short: we should have many methods.

--Andrew whitworth