Understanding Open Source Software Development [Paperback]

Joseph Feller (Author), Brian Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 2001

Open Source Software Development offers the first serious (and academically rigorous) study of the OSS phenomenon. The authors examine several key aspects of OSS, for example: Definitions of OSS and Free Software, including a comprehensive guide to both OSS and non-OSS software licences. Profiles of key OSS products, projects, companies and organisations. Analysis of the technological motivations for OSS development, with explicit reference to the possibility of OSS addressing the "software crisis."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Information Research %20Eric%20S.%20Raymond's%20book,%20The%20cathedral%20and%20the%20bazaar,%20and%20Raymond%20writes%20the%20Foreword%20to%20this%20book.%20One%20of%20the%20authors,%20Fitzgerald,%20- a paper that, incidentally, has attracted almost 2,000 'hits' since last July. There is, as a result, a certain degree of familiarity with everything about this book - both subject and authorship!

Raymond, in the Foreword, comments that this is the first attempt to pull together the various strands in the development of open source software that the pioneers of this approach have not had time, or perhaps the inclination, to put together themselves. This, indeed, appears to be the case. The authors have clear objectives: they note, in the introduction that they wished to produce a book that would be useful to both academic and professional readers:

On the academic side, we have endeavoured to provide... a thorough sythesis and analysis of the OSS research that has appeared to date... On the professional side, we wanted to disseminate the significant volume of rigorous academic reearch into OSS development practices back into the development community.

The authors define Open Source Software by reference to the

(OSD),%20produced%20and%20maintained%20by%20the%20Open%20Source%20Initiative.%20That%20definition%20has%20nine%20elements%20to%20it,%20which%20describe%20the%20conditions%20a%20software%20licence%20must%20satisfy,%20if%20the%20software%20is%20to%20be%20considered%20'Open%20Source'.%20You%20could%20well%20be%20reading%20this%20review%20as%20a%20result%20of%20your%20server%20software%20being%20Apache, which has an OSD licence, and is the most used server software in the world, with (at November 2001) 56.5% of the market. Key among the terms of the licence are; that the vendor must maintain the integrity of the author's source code by providing 'patches' that make changes when the software is 'built' on the user's machine, rather than my modifying it before distribution; that there should be no discrimination against persons or groups of persons; and that the user should be able to modify the source code and share those modifications with the author and with others. The fact that companies like Red Hat, seller of the Linux programming language, Netscape and even IBM are happy to beome involved with OSS suggests that the process must bring benefits.

The authors describe the process that gives the benefits, noting that the process is parallel, with many developers simultaneously involved in the process, rather than a single software team in a commercial sofware company, that there is genuine peer review of suggestions and code in the process of creation, that there is increased user involvement, and that the process uses a succession of rapid releases of new versions, ensuring that users always have the latest version available quickly. The also explore also the weaknesses and problems of OSS, and en route, discuss the organizations involved in the OSS movement and how the development process in managed. They also suggest that the key issues in OSS are not technological, but sociological, in that the process explores a new way of working that may well extend into other fields of endeavour.

This book is well written, clear in its exposition, well illustrated with quotations from people in the OSS 'movement' and from other industry leaders and will serve as a useful text on this mode of software development.

The first author, Feller, maintains a Web site on open source software, which provides resources and links to supplement this text.

Professor Tom Wilson
Editor-in-Chief

From the Back Cover

UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Joseph Feller & Brian Fitzgerald

"

This book is not the last word; last words are about dead things, and

Open Source development is quite lustily alive. But it is an important

step along the way, answering some questions and raising others that

will continue to be live and fruitful research topics.

Welcome to the conversation..."

From the foreword by Eric S. Raymond

 

Propelled by headline products such as Linux and Apache, the development and manufacture of Open Source Software (OSS) has become a multi-billion dollar industry in recent years. Unsurprisingly, much has been written about this phenomenon, but the central issues involved are too often obscured by myth, misunderstanding, and partisan opinion. In Understanding Open Source Software Development, Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald have assembled the first complete and objective synthesis of the available literature, offering a unique one-stop reference for developers, researchers, managers and anyone else needing to grasp the key issues about OSS.

The book addresses the fundamental questions of "what, why, when, where and how" the Open Source process has been able to produce category -killing software without the support of a traditional software engineering environment and without the support of a traditional software company's marketing machine. In doing so, the authors provide:

• An understanding of the Open Source Definition and the major Open Source Licences;
• A context for OSS in the history of software development;
• An analytical framework for describing and understanding the OSS phenomenon;
• A roadmap of the key organizations and projects involved in OSS;
• An exploration of what motivates the adoption of OSS products, processes and business models;
• A critical discussion of the strengths, weaknesses and paradoxes of OSS development.

Understanding Open Source Software Development is complemented by the Open Source Resources portal at http://opensource.ucc.ie, featuring regularly maintained links to OSS companies, organizations, projects, publications, news , opinion, research and events.

 

Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald have been extremely active in promoting the rigorous academic investigation of Open Source Software. They have guest-edited special issues of the Information Systems Journal and IEE Proceedings-Software on the topic, and were the lead organizers and proceedings editors of The 1st Workshop on Open Source Software Engineering held at ICSE 2001.

Joseph Feller is a Lecturer with the Business Information Systems Group, University College Cork, Ireland. His research on Open Source Software is published in several prominent conference proceedings and he is the author of Customer Friendly: Design Guidelines for eCommerce. He also edits the monthly professional journal, Inside XML Solutions.

Brian Fitzgerald is Senior Researcher with the Executive Systems Research Centre, University College Cork. He is an Associate Editor for the Information Systems Journal and Data Base, and author or co-author of four books and more than 50 papers. He has presented research at a number of international conferences, and, prior to entering academia, spent more than fifteen years in industry.

Visit us on the world wide web at:

www.it-minds.com

www.aw.com/cseng

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (December 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201734966
• ISBN-13: 978-0201734966
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #87 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Unix

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced and business-focused, March 26, 2002

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding Open Source Software Development (Paperback)

This may be the perfect book about open source software because it places open source within the context of business value and does not promote it as the great panacea that characterize the message of far too many books on the subject.

What I like is that, after providing an overview of open source, its history and proponents, the authors discuss how to analyze open source software within two major frameworks: the Zachman framework that was developed in 1987 and is popular today as an enterprise-wide information systems paradigm, and a newer framework called CATWOE. I'm new to the latter, but it is solid and is independent of open source. CATWOE stands for Clients, Actors, Transformations, World View, Owners and Environment.

The remainder of the book discusses aspects of open source as they relate to the CATWOE framework, which ensures that fair and complete treatments of the business and technical issues are given. I would have liked a more in-depth discussion of the legal issues and business risks that are associated with the GPL; however, that information is in a state of flux and is probably best gotten from daily news sources.

If you want to understand open source software development, especially as it relates to business value, this book is the one I recommend. The authors also have an associated web site (the URL is provided in the book).

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Open source software as seen by an "independent" third party, January 5, 2004

By 

Richard Bejtlich "TaoSecurity" (Metro Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding Open Source Software Development (Paperback)

"Understanding Open Source Software Development" (UOSSD) is the perfect introduction to OSS for those outside the community. The book takes a fairly balanced look at the people and processes which define the open source movement. Although some aspects of the book have grown stale over the last three years, I still recommend UOSSD to those desiring a deeper look at the open source phenomenon.

One of the best aspects of UOSSD is its page count: at 180 pages of text, it's a fast read. It still packs quite a punch, drawing upon and summarizing academic and non-fiction literature on OSS. Prior to reading the book I was unaware of the idealogical battle between the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation. These and other historical observations were invaluable.

UOSSD is useful for those who want to leave the Microsoft-bashing aspects of the OSS bandwagon in search of a more meaningful role in the community. By explaining the OSS community's dynamics, readers learn that a good way to contribute is to submit patches (p. 104). Authors Feller and Fitzgerald explain that OSS has "the highest payoff for software which requires a high degree of reliability" (p. 135). This is the heart of the security debate engulfing Microsoft.

My only criticisms relate to the passage of time. The book's "acknowledgements" are dated Oct 2001. Unfortunately, a company analyzed in several locations, CoSource, appears to have had already gone out of business by then. Late last year Red Hat left its "pure play" OSS role for "RHEL." Concerns over a lack of internationalization, particularly for languages, have been completely reversed; OpenOffice supports more languages than Microsoft Office.

Despite these drawbacks, UOSSD is a great book for techies and managers alike. I'm adding it to my "Management and Policy" Listmania List today.

0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Suspicious reader, May 7, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Understanding Open Source Software Development (Paperback)

No points, no correctness, no validation, no value!
What the hell is this book for? Is it just a manifestation that free software is bad?