At one point in the fairly recent past, I came to the same conclusion. O'Reilly was ignoring Unix stuff.

Of course, I was wrong. It certainly _can_ appear that way, though. O'Reilly in the not-too-distant past, O'Reilly published almost nothing but Unix-based books. And they were good. Lately, that is no longer true, and if looked at from a certain angle, it appears as if you've abandoned that platform. It seems that all you've been publishing lately are Windows, Oracle, Palm, etc. But reality is that you've done an incredible job with publishing all of the Unix books in the past. So much so, that there's seldom a reason to publish anything else. Of course, during all of this time, you've been releasing new editions of old Unix books, but that's not noticeable, especially to someone who already has all of the earlier editions. In fact, now that I'm aware of that fact, I'm glad that O'Reilly is publishing those Windows books. It means either I can learn all of that Windows stuff in the concise manner I'm familar with, or you can roll all of that new money into making more Unix books.

Which brings us back to the original issue. Why were the Unix-based Palm tools not included in your book? Good question. It is unlike you to leave anything unmentioned, even when it is in competition with something of your own. I'm guessing that it was an oversight due to the author's (and editor's?) infamiliarity with those tools. Maybe more than that. Were they unaware of their existence? Maybe. I think this means that you're aware now, and in the next edition, you'll get it right. Right?

-Bitt

Bill,

Right. We will definitely cover the Linux/UNIX tools in the next edition, due out next year.

--Tim

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