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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: 1-56592-582-3 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: January, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.05 (21 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A Mixed Bag
Comment: I agree with many of the reviewers below that this book was helpful and often interesting. It gives a readable orientation to one of the most important movements in the software industry today, and the editors have been fortunate to gather together so many contributors who obviously know whereof they speak. In particular, the editors' Introduction, Eric Raymond's "Brief History of Hackerdom," Richard Stallman's account of GNU and FSF, Bruce Perens's discussion of Open Source, and Tim O'Reilly's essay on "Infoware" were informative and thought-provoking.
That said, it should be noted that the Amazon reviewer above gets it wrong when she writes that the book gives a "fascinating look at the raging debate." In fact, *nothing* about Open Source is debated in this book, which is a major disappointment. As the reviewer from Princeton below notes, the goodness of everything Open Source and the badness of everything Microsoft seems to be a given for many of the writers. At the risk of criticizing the book for not being something its creators didn't intend, I think it would be greatly improved with the addition of a wider range of viewpoints and even a dissenting voice or two. (There are a number of essays that could give place to some alternate content: Eric Raymond's second essay, "The Revenge of the Hackers," leans heavily toward the self-congratulatory, as does the Netscape cheerleaders' "Story of Mozilla." And Larry Wall's "Diligence, Patience, and Humility" seems to have been included not on its own merits but on the author's reputation as the Perl Deity.)
A final wish is for the book to address a broader range of readers. As a longtime computer user but a relatively new programmer, with no formal business training, I found many of the essays to rely heavily on the jargon of hackers and MBAs. More editorial control here, in addition to a broader range of content, would make this book seem less like preaching to the choir and more effective at spreading the Open Source gospel.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good Information, but needs serious proofing
Comment: First of all, take a look at the list of authors. It reads as a "Who's Who" guide for the software and tools I'm running on my current system. (Kernel by Torvalds, GNU/Free Software by Stallman, Open Source Software by a number of individuals/companies (esr, Perens), development tools by Cygnus (Tiemann), DNS by Vixie, web server by Apache (Behlendorf), CGI programming in Perl by Wall, browser by Netscape (Hamerly, Paquin), Linux Distribution by RedHat (Young), and references by O'Reilly. (Of course, there should be an "et al." behind every one of these names.)
This is a great book for achieving basic literacy in the (generically-termed) Open Source movement.
By reading this book, you'll get rms' view of why software must be free. (And indeed, why it eventually will be free.) You'll also find out how some companies (like the newly-merged RedHat/Cygnus conglomerate) can thrive in a market where the product is free.
If you read *all* of the essays, you'll even find out why the Free Software Foundation's GPL does not work in some cases, and how "Open Source Software" is similar to and differs from "Free Software". (The below reviewer should be slapped with his Clue Stick for not taking the time to read and understand this important difference. ;-)
And you'll also find out why Perl (like Larry Wall himself) is so strange and brilliant at the same time.
The reason this book only gets 4 stars is due to the lack of proofing. One of Wall's diagrams is completely missing, and there are numerous typos. This is the first O'Reilly book I've seen with a lot of stupid mistakes. (And I've seen a lot of them. =)
PKG
Rating: 3
Summary: Intresting mainly to see the differeces among the authors...
Comment: This book is an interesting window on the Open Source world. It is a strange planet with strange people. Some crazy idealist like R. Stallman (I like the guy very much), some smart and intelligent person like L. Torvald (he did a very good job with Linux). In between someone that was just in the right place at the right time, but who doesn't deserve so much space and celebrity. I am talking about a person that seems confused as the language he invented: Larry Wall. His contribution does not require further comments.
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Title: The Cathedral & the Bazaar (paperback) by Eric S. Raymond ISBN: 0596001088 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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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: 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: 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 as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams ISBN: 0596002874 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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