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Review:Open Sources 69

I'm the first to admit that I'm the last person who should write a book review. In fact, this is the first one I've posted on Slashdot. Frankly I don't read books any more- just web pages. I just don't have time- plus that whole paper thing doesn't appeal to me any more. But when "Open Sources:Voices from the Open Source Revolution" got here, I had no option but to read it. Immediately. Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman and Mark Stone, it's a collection of essays from Open Source glitterati with an impressive roster of names including ESR, RMS, Linus, Larry Wall, Bob Young, Tim O'Reilly, Bruce Perens and more. It's a wonderful read, hit the link below to read the rest.

Open Sources

Each of these essays is an interesting read. The book starts off with ESRs 'Brief History of Hackerdom' which is an enjoyable read, although its a history that most of us are already familiar with. Marshall Kirk McKusick's piece follows with an in depth history of UNIX and BSD. Much of this information was new to me- it was one of my favorite sections in the book. And Linus talks about the Linux Kernel.

RMSs piece is, well, an RMS piece. Its interesting, but nothing new if you're familiar with RMS and the FSF. But if you aren't its an excellent little primer on the topic And that is important considering that this books target isn't as much the hacker, as it is the hacker's Boss. This is especially obvious after reading the articles by Bob Young and Michael Tiemann. Each article is an interesting look at the Open Source movement, but told through the eyes of the businessman.

Bruce Perens defines Open Source, A band of folks from Netscape including Tom Paquin talk about Mozilla from Netscape's perspective, and ESR writes a nice bit on the movement from the other side.

But my personal favorite bit is 'Diligence, Patience, and Humility' by Larry Wall. It seems curiously out of place in this book. Most every essay is a good read for "Your Boss" but this one is clearly for the artsy hacker type. Wall talks about communication, programming, philosophy, and pretty much anything else that comes to his mind in this humorous but insightful rambling essay. It alone was worth the price of admission.

So anyway, if your boss asks you what Open Source is, this is the book. If he ask you why it is, this is also the book. If you want to read an interesting collection of essays by the people who made this movement happen, this is the book. It is one of the few books that I'm glad I own- taking its place besides my few other favorite (mostly Dave Barry, Douglas Adams, and various O'Reilly Animal) dead tree editions. Highly recommended. A 9 out of 10.

If you are interested in purchasing this book, click here.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman, and Mark Stone

A Brief History of Hackerdom
Eric S. Raymond

Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix: From AT&T-Owned to Freely Redistributable
Marshall Kirk McKusick

The Internet Engineering Task Force
Scott Bradner

The GNU Operating System and the Free Software Movement
Richard Stallman

Future of Cygnus Solutions: An Entrepreneur's Account
Michael Tiemann

Software Engineering
Paul Vixie

The Linux Edge
Linus Torvalds

Giving It Away: How Red Hat Software Stumbled Across a New Economic Model and Helped Improve an Industry
Robert Young

Diligence, Patience, and Humility
Larry Wall

Open Source as a Business Strategy
Brian Behlendorf

The Open Source Definition
Bruce Perens

Hardware, Software, and Infoware
Tim O'Reilly

Freeing the Source: The Story of Mozilla
Jim Hamerly and Tom Paquin with Susan Walton

The Revenge of the Hackers
Eric S. Raymond

Appendix A: The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate

Appendix B: The Open Source Definition, Version 1.0

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Review:Open Sources

Comments Filter:
  • That is a must have. If Open Source did not exist, I'd be doing something completely different. This is what moves me.

    Thanks for the plug Cmdr!
  • Anybody got an ISBN for that book?
  • Will the 2nd edition include the much-talked-about "Why openly-coded software scares the shit out of me and my money" chapter by Bill Gates?

    Anyway, I guess I'd best get this book right now.

  • by Eric Wayte ( 4583 ) on Friday February 19, 1999 @05:05AM (#2010651) Homepage
    I just picked up Open Sources and have found it to be a great read. Kirk McKusick is an excellent writer and his history of BSD is required reading for the Linuxen out there.

    One thing does bother me about this book - where's the animal? O'Reilly is starting to not use animals on the cover (Cracking DES is another example) and I think this bothers me more than them making money off Open Source / Free Software. :-)
  • by IIO ( 12079 ) on Friday February 19, 1999 @05:29AM (#2010652) Homepage Journal
    Just want to mention that Michael Tiemann's piece on Cygnus Solutions is available online from the cygnus main website. It's a very well-written piece.

    Two important pieces that's LACKING from the book are, IMHO,
    1. Donald Knuth, TeX, Metafont, And The Art Of Computer Programming
    2. Peter Deutsch, PostScript, GhostScript, And Alladin.

    --
    IIO, my fifth post to /.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Open Source for whom?

  • I assume you don't object to paying for the physical entity...

    Are you concerned that the individuals who contributed have copyright over their work?

    That's a seperate question entirely. Since I have no plans to make money by re-using what they have written, I'm more than happy to pay for it.


  • The final draft of Bruce Perens' chapter "The Open Source Definition [hams.com]" is on-line, as is Eric Raymond's prologue ""The Real Programmers [oreilly.com]".
  • That's not really a new thing; their Linux books seem to use old-style drawings of cowboys (Running Linux, Olaf Kirch's networking book), and their Java books use digitally manipulated stock photos.
    Didn't one security-related book in the Nutshell series use an image of a lock and key?
  • by drwiii ( 434 )
    --
    Thank you for ordering from Amazon.com!

    1 copy of "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System (Unix and Open Systems Series.)"
    Marshall Kirk McKusick(Editor), et al; Hardcover; @ $55.95 each
    (Usually ships in 24 hours)

    1 copy of "Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly Open Source)"
    Mark Stone(Editor), et al; Paperback; @ $19.96 each
    (Usually ships in 1-2 weeks)

  • As the reviewer says, this is a book that would appeal to your boss.

    That's a very different market place to the technical nutshell series. People associate the 'old animal drawings' brand with books that techies have close at hand. It would be confusing to use that same look for a book that a curious executive might read over a weekend or dip into during a long business flight.

    O'Reilly (nutshell) covers are fantastic, but what is really special is the excellent typography and layout inside. I hope they keep that across their whole range.


  • Nice review. Why don't you post it on Amazon?
  • There have been lots of books w/o the animals:

    The Definitive Guides to the X Window System


    "In true sound..." -Agents of Good Root
  • i can't understand why ESR can even be mentioned in the same book as people like RMS. He's done nothing for open source but shoot his mouth off.
    (yes i know he wrote a couple of tiny programs once. big deal).
  • I would strongly suggest you buy the book. Not only are you supporting O'Reilly & Associates who happen to be a great focal point for the Open Source Software movement. But think about what things will be like 10 years from now. This book is already a legacy, a piece of lore of a kickass culture.
  • Here's an interview with Brad Wardell that talks about Linux and Open Source:

    http://www.os2ezine.com/v4n3/wardell.htm [os2ezine.com]


    In it, he makes the claim that it's quite possible to enhance and expand an OS without needing the source code. An snippet:

    "Many people, particularly Linux advocates, feel that you have to have the source code in order to extend the OS. That's only because of the way Linux was designed."

    --
    Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
  • personally, i respect people who *do* things, not people who just talk about other folk's work.

    ESR is the dilbert-style marketing slime of the open source world.
  • Posted by abk:

    I enjoyed the book, though it wasn't consistently great it had some excellent chapters. The chapters by Tim O'Reilly and Larry Wall I enjoyed the most. It gives you a good idea of what the open source movement is about and has inspired us to think of how we can be more open in our projects. I reviewed it at:

    http://www.webreference.com/new/990201.html#open
  • Okay, in the case of books, you can't fork the tree. That's a real issue. Any comments?



    You need to knife trees in order to make books, but forks aren't necessary.



    Sorry, couldn't resist

  • Read my chapter on-line here [hams.com].

    I am working a 100% free sequel to this book, called Copy This Book! It will contain the GPL-ed essays from the Open Sources book, and other essays that are under licenses that are compliant with the DFSG/OSD.

    I'll have the first version online this evening. If you'd like to write for this, start writing, and e-mail me at copythis@hams.com [mailto].

    I think it's time for hackers to take back charge of their information sources. This is my first step, there will be more.

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

  • He also took over maintenance of the Jargon File (another must-read) from Guy Steele, and has maintained it for a number of years before the term "Open Source" ever came into usage. He had already set a precedent for documenting hacker nature, so it's not unusual that he was thrust into the position of spokesman.
    --
    Kevin Doherty
    kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
  • You're a raving NT supporter and spreader of FUD. You're about as well qualified to rate ESR against RMS as Jim Falwell is to choose the next head of Atheists of America.

    --
  • Being a psuedo-geek myself (haven't quite labotomized the right side completely) I hope this terrible trend in critterless covers doesn't coleus into anything more concrete. It gives rise to contemplative concern, to be concise.
  • I thing you are confusing the editors. Bill Gates will add this chapter, and also another "Why Windows is actually OpenSource, and how I initiated the whole Open Source movement", but in his own book "The Road Ahead"

    Yes, but will he release the new book as a "Service Pack", or an "Upgrade"? Either way, it's sure to have a "Y2K Compliant!" sticker on it....
  • personally, i respect people who *do* things, not people who just talk about other folk's work.
    In other words, you use NetBSD rather than Linux because Linux has a much higher marketing:code production ratio, right?

    Or how did you think that Linux ended up being hyped by the media so much with hardly a mention of the BSDs?

    cjs

  • CmdrTaco writes:

    Frankly I don't read books any more- just web pages. I just don't have time- plus that whole paper thing doesn't appeal to me any more.
    Nobody I know can quite tell if this is serious, tongue-in-cheek, "geek posturing", or some combination of the above.

    Does the New Geek really not read books? Is this because they live on the edge of a transition to new media, because they prefer "here-and-now" hands-on experience to "old-and-stuffy" accumulated learning, or because they believe that nothing in the "old world" could possibly pertain to the "new world" they live in?

    Is this anti-intellectualism, snobbery, short-sightedness, or pragmatic foresight?

    And is our beloved CmdrTaco espousing it or making fun of it?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • One thing does bother me about this book - where's the animal?

    They ran out of them. Check back in a few years when they discover new species.

  • RMS is a jackass.

    I suppose that's your personal opinion. That's not relevant to this discussion.

    Every time he opens his mouth he chases the mainstream away from Linux and free software. He looks and smells like a wookie, and totally lacks any sense of professionalism.

    Perhaps you miss the point. RMS has a goal of making good Free Software. He does not have a goal of selling such software and getting rich from it. If companies want to use it, that's fine by him, but he's not going to sell out his principles to make a quick buck, which is more than I can say for Mr. Raymond.

    After all those years of "free software advocacy" RMS has gotten us nowhere.

    Excuse me? "Nowhere"? Do you have really not have any idea of the history of what you're talking about, or are you just a troll?

    RMS founded the Free Software Foundation, which started the GNU project. The GNU project is a project to produce a completely Free Operating System. At the moment, it is nearly finished except for the kernel. Until the kernel (HURD) is finished, you can run the rest of the OS with the Linux kernel (a GNU/Linux combination). Without GNU, and hence without RMS, there would be no Linux, as Linus would probably not have decided to undertake the task of writing a kernel if he also had to write the rest of the OS (his own C compiler (there would be no gcc), C library (no glibc), and various other things, such as ls, cat, grep, chmod, etc.)

    Then ESR comes along. He understands how the corporate managers think. He can get on the phone with people like Lou Gerstner and talk their language. RMS comes off like some homeless turd preaching about the apocolypse on a street corner.
    People like Sam Ockman and ESR brought us the current prosperity that we enjoy. RMS has held us back for YEEEEARS. It has nothing to do with code. It has to do with advocacy.


    ESR has repackaged Free Software by removing such objectionable things as "freedom" and repackaging it as Open Source. As such, he's sold the package to business at the expense of selling out the principles and philosophy behind the Free Software movement. This is why Bruce Perens quit the Open Source Initiative - because it's Free Software that matters.
  • Hmm, so since he criticized the X Windowing System (which pretty much sucks for the reasons he mentioned) he's suddenly somebody on a secret mission from Microsoft?
  • palmtops aside (which might come into play later) it's difficult to move e-text around in the real world. I'd rather not have to take my Newton into the bathroom or to the beach or to...wherever. even an easy chair can be problematic if the screen glare/LCD brightness/is not optimal.
  • Anonymous Coward wrote:

    man, the only reason i ever go to that horrible mall road thing is the taco bell. the tower there sucks (all towers suck, come to think of it :) and i hate those strip mall things.

    Bah. Taco Bell. Feh. Bad. The Chihuahua is cool, though. And there's always Newbury Comics.

    and WTF is up with the paving on middlesex turnpike?!?! horrible, horrible, horrible.

    You must never drive Route 93 south of Boston. Burlington is dreamlike by comparison.

    Anyway, I like SoftPro. They give me book marks, and they have all of the O'Reilly books, I think.

    ObReviewThing: I'm finding the "content" in the book to be far better (gramatically and factually) than the introductory material. I particularly liked Kirk's bit, although I'm looking forward reading the the RMS and Wall pieces.

  • That's not the point. The point is that X's network functionality is unneeded bloat and inefficient for those who just want to run a single non-networked desktop. Writing directly to the monitor, as non-networked GUIs do, would be more efficient.

    Also, X is getting really old and decrepit. Just to get decent fonts in it requires some pretty extensive patching.
  • FYI, i run red hat at home, and use bash and xemacs every day.

    there is a *lot* of good open source stuff, but linux isn't an example of it.
  • When we first started putting animals on our books, the only books we published were hands-on books for hackers--or more specifically, for programmers, system administrators and power users who wanted to get under the hood of whatever program they were using.

    Somewhere in there, we published our X books, which were targetted at corporate adoption as reference manuals. At the time, we weren't that well known, and the animals were a little too wierd for the suits, so we developed a more conventional look for the X books.

    Now, we're so well known that the animals have cachet even with big companies. But over the years, we still realized that not all our books are the same, and we wanted the animal brand to represent a particular kind of book--a hands on book, by people on the front lines, for people who wish they could look over their shoulder.

    So, over the years, we've tended to not use animals on books that aren't "how to" books. The first time I made that decision, it was for a Posix Reference Manual. It was a good book, but kind of dry, and I didn't think it represented the kind of book that people expected from us. So I decided it shouldn't have an animal so that people's expectations wouldn't be set wrong.

    We've blown it a few times. For example, when we started publishing our Java series, we decided to create a new, somewhat tamer, look because, once again, we were thinking of that as a consistent series for corporate adoption. But as it turned out, we didn't need to do that (because even the corporations now think that the animals are cool). Ever since then, we've had furious debates internally about whether to switch back to the animals for the Java books, since they really are the same kind of hands-on books as our original UNIX books. As the company has evolved, we've done some variations as well--the Linux cowboy imagery, the lock and key engravings on security books, and so on.

    We've also done some books--the Be reference manuals, for instance (BE, Inc.), and in those cases, we've used a non-animal look because those books were not solely our product, with our kind of approach.

    Edie Freedman, the creative genius behind the animal brand, is worried about eventually running out of animals, but that isn't an issue yet.

    The animals have become a powerful brand because they mean something: hands on books for hackers.
    To bring this back to Open Sources, it's a book of essays, not a hands-on book, and that's why we didn't put an animal on it.

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