Subject: [p2prg] Second Generation P2P Engineering

From: Bill Yeager <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:55:24 -0800

Hello,

Dr. Rita Yu Chen and I just published the above book that can be  
accessed for free at the following URL:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23764170/Second-Generation-Peer-to-Peer-Engineering

Below is the forward that explains this books history. I do hope some  
of you talk a look.

Best regards,
Bill

Forward

We are sure that many of you wonder why a book completed in 2004 is  
finally being published in 2009. To clarify this what follows is a  
short history of the writing of  “Second Generation P2P Engineering.”

An editor from Addison-Wesley contacted us in the spring of 2002 after  
having read a few of our publications on the Internet. As the editor  
roughly described it at the time, “I was mining the Internet for  
possible authors in the P2P field and found you two.” We then  
completed the standard Addison-Wesley book proposal form that was  
accepted after both Addison-Wesley internal as well as external peer  
reviews. We began to write the book that summer. During the writing  
process that was finished in early 2004 all the completed chapters  
underwent peer review. These reviews were without exception excellent.  
So, why wasn’t the book published?

The final reason given to us by our third Addison-Wesley editor was  
that with respect to the technical book area, it was becoming more and  
more difficult to capture sales and that they did not believe our book  
would sell 30,000 copies. We consequently formally terminated our  
contract, thus reverting all rights granted to Addison-Wesley for the  
manuscript and its publication back to us.

As one can imagine, we were very disappointed given the effort it took  
to complete “Second Generation P2P Engineering.” But, it is important  
to note that we do not fault Addison-Wesley, and understood their  
decision. The business climate was difficult at that time, and for us  
it was a case of bad timing.

Our initial editor also felt badly about this and put us in contact  
with a few other editors. They all had the same take on the technical  
book market, and as a result, our book has remained in a digital  
archive since that time. We remain friends with our initial editor.

Finally and happily, Dr. Rita Chen discovered scribd.com earlier this  
year. It took us a few months of review to decide if a web-based  
publication was appropriate for our book after a five-year hiatus on a  
digital bookshelf, and have concluded that it is suitable for  
publication.

It’s always interesting to reread what one has written and to be  
pleasantly surprised at first with how well the book is written, and  
its approachability, and second that a great deal of it is still quite  
relevant today. The book is written so that the introductory chapters  
are readable by non-technical persons, and that the introductions to  
the more technical chapters are similarly done.

We hope that those of you, who scan, read parts or attempt to absorb  
most or all of the technical design details we present feel the same  
way.

William Yeager, Rita Yu Chen  November 2009