Forward

Why Open Source?

Almost all major works in philosophy and literature are accessible via online sources on the Internet. Fortunately, much of the best work in philosophy and literature is available in the public domain. A translation of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, in particular, became available through Project Gutenberg by Michael Pullen. This edited version of that text is subject to the legal notice following the title page referencing the GFDL License.

By placing this edited reading selection under the GFDL, this product is being open-sourced, in part, to minimize costs to interested students of philosophy and, in part, to make it widely available in a form convenient to a wide variety of readers. A particular virtue of DocBook is that the same text may be converted into a variety of formats, including audio and Braille files. Also, students, themselves, can improve the product if they wish to do so.

This particular edition represents a first step in the development of the open-source text. The development model of Siddhartha is loosely patterned on the "release early, release often" model championed by Eric S. Raymond.[1] Various formats of this work are being made available for distribution. If the core reading and commentary prove useful, the successive revisions will be released as incrementally numbered "stable"versions beginning with version 1.0.

Please send your questions and inquiries of interest to the "Editors" at

Notes

[1]

Eric Raymond. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1999. Online at The Cathedral and the Bazaar.