RTK alternative ebook with only 734 important kanji and vocabulary.

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Reply #1 - 2013 November 21, 8:09 am
lachy New member
From: France Registered: 2013-09-15 Posts: 8 Website

Hello RevTKers,

I'd like to show you Smart Kanji Book, my new kanji ebook focused on reading comprehension. It uses RTK-like stories and primitives but only contains 734 kanji that cover 85% of Wikipedia and words they form.

I went through RTK lite with RevTK and KWAT to learn to read the Japanese web but I would have preferred to have an all-in-one book with an even better list, no fake kanji meanings and coherent stories (same writer and themes) so I refined my learning log into this book.

I already got a lot of feedback on /r/LearnJapanese, some of which has already been implemented and I'm looking forward to some more here. You can get a quick overview of it on the full book's sales page.

Last edited by lachy (2013 November 21, 8:10 am)

Reply #2 - 2013 November 21, 8:39 am
toshiromiballza Member
Registered: 2010-10-27 Posts: 277

The KanjiVG project for providing stroke order diagrams. In the full book version,
these diagrams are in a separate 13-page CC-BY-SA-licensed PDF.

There is no reason to produce two pdf files, which I suppose you did for licensing reasons. Using CC BY-SA licensed data does not prevent you from making your work non-free, unless it's licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. It only means you have to license your work under the same license, and it's up to you if you want to make it free or not.

And EDICT is also licensed under CC BY-SA, so that should also be mentioned in the pdf.

Reply #3 - 2013 November 21, 8:59 am
lachy New member
From: France Registered: 2013-09-15 Posts: 8 Website

I contacted the KanjiVG devs to thank them and they considered SKB built upon KanjiVG since it includes about 200 of their diagrams so I would have to release it under CC-BY-SA.

You're right about attribution, it will be fixed in the next update. I'll also ask for permission to make sure they're OK with my usage.

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Reply #4 - 2013 November 21, 9:10 am
toshiromiballza Member
Registered: 2010-10-27 Posts: 277

You don't have to ask for permission: http://www.edrdg.org/edrdg/licence.html

In any case, you have to release your e-book under CC BY-SA, both for using KanjiVG and EDICT, there is no going around that (unless maybe EDRDG & KanjiVG give you special permission, I don't know).

And if somebody happens to make an Anki deck out of it and releases it for free, there's nothing you can do.

Last edited by toshiromiballza (2013 November 21, 9:19 am)

Reply #5 - 2013 November 21, 9:13 am
NightSky Member
From: Japan Registered: 2008-04-13 Posts: 302

lachy wrote:

I contacted the KanjiVG devs to thank them and they considered SKB built upon KanjiVG since it includes about 200 of their diagrams so I would have to release it under CC-BY-SA.

You're right about attribution, it will be fixed in the next update. I'll also ask for permission to make sure they're OK with my usage.

You should have done that before you start selling your book for money. Not later after the fact.

Reply #6 - 2013 November 21, 11:36 am
lachy New member
From: France Registered: 2013-09-15 Posts: 8 Website

Having reference numbers from the book to a CC-BY-SA document is perfectly fine, KanjiVG devs see no objection to this.

You should have done that before you start selling your book for money. Not later after the fact.

Right, I haven't been careful enough in interpreting licenses.

Last edited by lachy (2013 November 21, 12:26 pm)

Reply #7 - 2013 November 21, 3:15 pm
toshiromiballza Member
Registered: 2010-10-27 Posts: 277

lachy wrote:

Having reference numbers from the book to a CC-BY-SA document is perfectly fine, KanjiVG devs see no objection to this.

It is completely unnecessary and annoying from the end-user point of view.

And seeing as EDICT is also licensed under CC BY-SA, you'll have to move both the KanjiVG data and the EDICT data into a separate document.

Again, from the end-user point of view, completely unnecessary and annoying.

Reply #8 - 2013 November 21, 11:36 pm
lachy New member
From: France Registered: 2013-09-15 Posts: 8 Website

It is completely unnecessary and annoying from the end-user point of view.

I agree it's less convenient but it's only 13 pages covering weeks of study so it's easily printable.

Fortunately, I got permission from Jim Breen a couple of hours ago (I'll link to a public proof of license if he provides one). Honestly, I think CC-BY-SA's ebook/software inequality makes no sense here since this ebook could easily be an app and I think the long free sample/$10 full book pricing model is fair.

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