I don't think we (as individual users) should profit from our participation on a free forum/site like this. I'd say either vroom should establish a "kickback" reference for the site at the online bookseller of his choice, or you should post a link to the book on the publisher's site. 99% of the books we reference are ORA, anyway, so just link to the title on O'Reilly.com. Let the reader decide, based on their own preferences for cost/politics, where they want to buy the book from.

But now let's take it a step further. Suppose vroom implements a "projects" section, such as the section Perl Projects proposed by muppetBoy. Somebody comes up with a killer concept and a group of us work on it, with input and assistance from the community at large. Three months later, the killer concept is the new "killer app" and everyone wants to use it.

• Is the project automatically GPL? (I vote yes, others may not)
• Even as a GPL'd project, what happens if the group wants to market and sell their idea? Should PerlMonks get a cut? Everyone who contributed? Just the project members? Or every member of the site?

One of the things standing in the way of a great idea like the projects section is the question of ownership. Maybe we simply need to decide that each project is a special case, and the people involved will have to decide on their own. Thus risking the pain and torment of dying friendless and alone if the rest of us disagree. <g>

Personally, I would agree to something like 5% ownership to "perlmonks.com", and a "gentlemen's/women's agreement" that any member of the community who substantially contributes to the project be compensated if the project should ever be commercially successful. What do the rest of you think?