Note on editions, copyright, and sharing

During the 1990s, Internet browsers became prototypes for a new kind of relationship between new and old devices with respect to models or editions. With rapid technical advances, changes accumulated quickly. Rather than being pinned to the date of purchase in an immovable sense, it became possible to push downloads of updated software versions to existing devices on a regular, and indeed sometimes daily basis, adding changes large and small. It is true that, periodically, major watersheds continued to be marked with new names: Windows (1985), was followed by Windows 2 (1987), Windows 3 (1990), and so forth, leading to Windows 11 (2021). But these new models were not unchanging. Each version received monthly upgrades to the operating system, and daily updates to anti-virus programs, through the Windows Update app.

Print books have, in most contexts, resisted such changes. This seems to have more to do with publisher norms than the limits of print technologies. Charkes Darwin, for example, released six revised editions of the Origin of Species after 1859, and the changes were substantial. They went far beyond errata notes. Today, Darwin scholars agree that studying the varied editions is fundamental to grasping Darwin’s thinking.

For several decades, the same technologies that introduced lability into software have made it possible to continually revise and edit books, because books today are the product of software. This is most obviously true of eBooks. There is no technical reason why changes cannot be made to any digital composition, on an hourly daily, or annual basis. Like a Netscape browser, or a Windows OS, I have continued to make changes large and small to this eBook. Each change is time-stamped and saved, and it is possible to recover earlier versions. These changes can be classified as small edits, revisions, and additions.

Small edits correct errors in expression or spelling, add references, and sometimes reorganize a paragraph. Revisions rework whole chapters or subsections. Additions add new content.

The original edition of this book was composed between June and October, 2023, and consisted of what are now the introduction, and chapters one through five.  Between August and October, 2024, chapters six through thirteen were added. Through those two years, edits and revisions have been made affecting small portions of the text.