If you’ve looked at the Mercurial book site in the past 24 hours, you’ll have noticed that both its look and the name of the book have changed.
First, the cosmetic news. The change in appearance is due to my switching over to the system I used to publish Real World Haskell. I’ve always made the source code to the Mercurial book available, but now it includes the source of the Django app and jQuery code that drives the comment system. So if you’re writing an online book, have at it!
The change in title occurs because O’Reilly Media is going to publish the book in a few months, once I’ve tidied it up (with, I hope, your help!). The content is still licensed under the OPL, so you remain free to use and modify my work under remarkably liberal terms.
O’Reilly and I are donating my royalties on this book to the Software Freedom Conservancy, so if you buy a hardcopy, you’ll be helping one of the finest causes in the software world.
This is a great time to get involved in the production and polishing of the book, and as I did with the Haskell book, I’ll give credit to everyone who provides their name. If you’re interested in helping out, be it by contributing content, corrections, typo fixes, or suggestions, you have two easy ways to do so:
- Clone a copy of the source tree and start sending patches
- Use the comment system on the web site to point out errors and omissions, or to make suggestions
- For bigger stuff, report an issue
So please dive on in, and let’s make this book an even more outstanding resource for the Mercurial community!