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Title: The Cathedral & the Bazaar : Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond, Tim O'Reilly ISBN: 0-596-00131-2 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: February, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.97 (31 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Anthropology of Hackerdom
Comment: Eric Raymond is the Margaret Mead of the Open Source movement. His analysis of the gift culture as a model for explaining why hackers write software without recieving direct financial compensation is original, and as far as I know, unique. The economic implications are vast: if programmers write programs as a hobby, and do not stand in need of income for doing so (assume that they have day jobs), with rewards being in the form of status and reputation, then why buy the equivalent of what they're giving away?
Linux is the focus of this branch of the hacker-programming movement, which can also be seen at work in Apache and Java. The nature of the movement - everyone agreeing to play by Open Source rules, a leader (Linus Torvalds) who sets goals but does not exert formal authority, and a market (the Bazaar) where knowledge is dispersed throughout, reminds one of the Austrian Economists, who believed that a system operating as a spontaneous order would show greater productivity than a command economy, because of the exponentially greater amount of brain power in use. Raymond makes much the same point, when he argues that, "With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow."
For Microsoft, this is a deadly threat. Proprietary software and operating systems are expensive, to develop and to buy. If Open Source products are seen as being of like kind and quality, them software becomes a commodity, and branded, proprietary products, and the businesses that sell them, are facing inevitible decline in their core market.
If Raymond's thesis is correct (I believe, as a layman, that it is), then by 2010, Windows may have gone the way of the British Empire - living in memore (digital or otherwise) only.
-LLoyd A. Conway
Rating: 4
Summary: More analysis than manifesto, and better for it
Comment: The cult-like status of this book and its Web antecedents in the Linux community isn't surprising. But even for those of us who aren't staunch open-source partisans, it's a surprisingly well-argued (if a bit scattered) and concise collection.
Taken as a whole, the book makes a series of good business cases for when opening the source code to software is appropriate and potentially profitable -- as well as maximally efficient. I was pleased that Raymond acknowledges that open source is _not_ always the best way to go, even while noting that it will probably be more prevalent over time.
Raymond's fervour about open source shows through, particularly late in the book, but it doesn't detract from the largely objective analyses he makes -- so his arguments carry force.
Worth reading for anyone who's a programmer, a hacker, or interested in the politics of the software business. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Rating: 1
Summary: Important but misguided book
Comment: The Open Source movement had done for Computer Science what Creationism tried to to to the field of Biology. A political mass movement that has turned many in the field against the computer industry. For academics, this dogmatic illogical movement is nevertheless appealing, because it offers an opportunity to situate intellectuals and "hackers" into a false position of importance in the history and evolution of the computer industry.
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Title: The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source by Martin Fink ISBN: 0130476773 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 20 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source) by Chris Dibona, Mark Stone, Sam Ockman, Open Source (Organization), Brian Behlendorf, Scott Bradner, Jim Hamerly, Kirk McKusick, Tim O'Reilly, Tom Paquin ISBN: 1565925823 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds, David Diamond ISBN: 0066620732 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Joshua Gay ISBN: 1882114981 Publisher: Free Software Foundation Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution by Glyn Moody ISBN: 0738206709 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 15 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
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