I have had a love-hate relationship with O’Reilly for some time now. When I was first starting out learning Unix, sendmail, scripting languages like Perl and various obscure Internet technologies, there is no doubt that the familiar “Animal books” helped me on my way. I could even argue that the few hundred quid I threw at O’Reilly books between the ages of 18 and 22 did more for my career than the University degree I was supposedly taking at the time.

However, there has been a niggle: O’Reilly rides the crest of the open source wave for free. They take the documentation of open source projects, effectively recast it in a new light (often it’s the person who wrote the original document who they hire as the writer), put some polish on it, and sell it for £30 a go. They don’t seem to give anything back.

Sure there is the occasional sponsorship of a conference they’re not running, but that’s just marketing. Any other publisher would likely do the same if only somebody would ask. The honestly brilliant trick O’Reilly have pulled is making themselves the first port of call.

I’m not saying they don’t have a right to make money from this perfectly legal and legitimate business, but it’s like they’re looking at the OSS crowd and constantly sizing us up.

It niggles me.

It bothers me even more that I don’t have much of a choice but to remain a loyal customer. The rest of the publishing industry is pretty dire in terms of quality in the areas I like to work in (Pragmatic Programmers aside), and we’re not yet at a point where people are collaborating on great material online and giving it away for free or cutting out the middle-man. There are exceptions, but they aren’t many. Safari is also an obvious choice if you’re flitting around technologies as I do all the time, simply because it saves so much money.

My latest mental battle in this relationship with O’Reilly is r2 - a kind of cross between academic journal and Economist Intelligence Unit publication focusing on Web 2.0 and related technology trends.

“Sounds interesting”, you say. What’s my problem? The price for starters: $495 per 6 issues. I know, for the academic-journal-meets-EIU-crowd, that might seem a snip. I’m sure if I was a huge multi-national or if somebody else was paying the bill it wouldn’t be a problem.

My problem is that we now live in a World where SMEs, individual entrepreneurs, hobbyists, amateurs and people without a spare $495 are the ones who are changing the industry. Why would O’Reilly exclude them from the party and pretend it’s the year 2000 all over again? Why is it that they don’t want the people who are building the industry to see what they are saying about it? Are they just stupid, arrogant or elitist?

If the content really is of truly exceptional quality, I can’t see why word wouldn’t spread like wildfire if it were being sold at a more reasonable price. I don’t know how many subscriptions they’re getting right now, but I’m willing to bet it would be 10x more if they dropped the price by 75%. Top tip: 10 x 25% of revenue is worth more than 1 x 100% of revenue.

And the really annoying thing is, I know I’m going to end up subscribing. I’m going to be really angry when I do it, but at some point I’m going to have to take that $495 I could have invested elsewhere in my business, and shove it into the hands O’Reilly whose business model is seemingly defined by taking and rarely by giving.