Effective immediately, I am giving permission to anyone in possession of Practicing Ruby articles (either because you paid for them or gained access to them by any other means) to share them with anyone they'd like, providing that they follow these simple guidelines.

1) Don't publish the articles anywhere public, including mailing lists, blogs, etc.

2) Make sure to link back to this blog post prominently so that others are aware of the guidelines as well.

3) Include a link to our google group so that your friends can join the discussions there if they'd like.  But again, please don't post this link on any public sites.

Why am I doing this?

I will eventually release the whole archives under the GNU Free Documentation License, but for a number of reasons, want to wait a few months before doing that. For right now this gradual giveaway is a way for a wider audience to enjoy Practicing Ruby while giving me time to prepare for a proper public release down the line.

Read them all but still want more?

If by the time you've read this you've already got your hands on all 30 issues of Practicing Ruby, you might consider signing up to be notified about two eBooks I plan to release by summer 2011.  One is on Ruby Objects, Classes, and Modules and another is on Designing Ruby Software.  Since both are heavily inspired by the work I've done for Practicing Ruby, they would be a good fit for anyone who has enjoyed my newsletter.

More news will come on the eBooks later, for now, get started sharing Practicing Ruby with your friends!

PS: For those wondering, I didn't have this idea until long after I decided to cancel the newsletter. It may provide a bit of viral marketing for me, but my main motivation is just to let my writing reach a wider audience without going through a lot of effort to do a proper public release at the moment.  I also want our paying subscribers to be the judge of how generous they want to be about sharing a resource they've been shelling out money for, at least for now.