Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Richard P. Gabriel (Author) "BUSINESS IS CHANGING after the expansive thinking of the law 1990s followed by the lessons learned in the early 2000s: It no longer makes sense..." (more)
Key Phrases: Free Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, Common Lisp (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Innovation Happens Elsewhere is at least as important for those who have no interest in software as those who do, because in the details of the history and practice of the open source community lie clues to the institutional adaptations of the information economy; in the clauses of the various software licenses lie the case law that will come to define property in the information age. There are other books that have a great deal to say about this evolution, but none combines the personal experience and inside-out insight to be gained from the engagement of Ron Goldman and Richard Gabriel in so many flesh-and-blood open source projects and the development of the structures that have supported them."—from the foreword by Chris Meyer, Monitor Group

Book Description

How to develop software with open source techiques—from renowned engineers

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (April 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558608893
• ISBN-13: 978-1558608894
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #575,845 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars online version, December 12, 2005

By	I. Maclean (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The authoors have made this book available for reading online under a creative commons license at:
http://dreamsongs.com/IHE/IHE.html
This is very generous of the authors and thankfully is happening more and more with FOSS related books. - see Karl Fogels "Producing Open source" or Lessigs "Free Culture".

By all means buy the hardcopy if you like the online version. Personally I'm more likely to want to support an author who is good enough to make the material available online.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars sometimes look outside your company, August 3, 2005

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The authors explain how open source can be compatible with a company that develops its own proprietary software. A key point of the book is that going with open source can be a very pragmatic decision about speeding up product development. Because no matter how innovative your people are, the chances are high that due to sheer numbers of other people, you can use open source code developed by the latter.

One does not have to buy into the entire open source mindset to acknowledge that there is merit in accessing external code that is useful. If for no other reason than that your competitors might already be doing so. Reimplementing an open source application takes time to write and debug. So sometimes, look outside your company.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Open Source for dummies, April 17, 2006

By	Humpty Dumpty (Bangalore, India) - See all my reviews

This book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the world of open source software. It approaches open source from a business angle and discusses how businesses can use open source to further their goals.

The book starts with discussing the philosophy of open source, the various strategies that businesses can adopt to engage with the open source community, the various licenses that can be used and also how to successfully conduct an open source project by building a community.

The language used is simple and the examples used are real.