Submissions/The Ruby on Rails Tutorial model

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 2523

Title of the submission

Free content and the Ruby on Rails Tutorial

Type of submission

presentation

Michael Hartl

michael@michaelhartl.com

Username

mhartl

Country of origin

USA

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)

Personal homepage or blog

railstutorial.org

Abstract

The Ruby on Rails Tutorial is a book and screencast series that has become one of the leading introductions to web development, and was called by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales his "favorite book" ([[1]]) in 2013. The Rails Tutorial book has attracted a large readership due in part to being available for free online as HTML, but it is also a successful product business: between direct sales from railstutorial.org and a publication deal with Addison-Wesley, the Rails Tutorial has made more than $750,000 since the full product launch in late 2010. This presentation discusses the implications of this business model, which allows for authors to make a good living while giving much of their work away for free.

Track

• Legal & Free Culture

Length of session

30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?

Probably not

Slides or further information (optional)

Special requests

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