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Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution 1st Edition, Kindle Edition
Freely available source code, with contributions from thousands of programmers around the world: this is the spirit of the software revolution known as Open Source. Open Source has grabbed the computer industry's attention. Netscape has opened the source code to Mozilla; IBM supports Apache; major database vendors haved ported their products to Linux. As enterprises realize the power of the open-source development model, Open Source is becoming a viable mainstream alternative to commercial software.Now in Open Sources, leaders of Open Source come together for the first time to discuss the new vision of the software industry they have created. The essays in this volume offer insight into how the Open Source movement works, why it succeeds, and where it is going.For programmers who have labored on open-source projects, Open Sources is the new gospel: a powerful vision from the movement's spiritual leaders. For businesses integrating open-source software into their enterprise, Open Sources reveals the mysteries of how open development builds better software, and how businesses can leverage freely available software for a competitive business advantage.The contributors here have been the leaders in the open-source arena:
- Brian Behlendorf (Apache)
- Kirk McKusick (Berkeley Unix)
- Tim O'Reilly (Publisher, O'Reilly & Associates)
- Bruce Perens (Debian Project, Open Source Initiative)
- Tom Paquin and Jim Hamerly (mozilla.org, Netscape)
- Eric Raymond (Open Source Initiative)
- Richard Stallman (GNU, Free Software Foundation, Emacs)
- Michael Tiemann (Cygnus Solutions)
- Linus Torvalds (Linux)
- Paul Vixie (Bind)
- Larry Wall (Perl)
- ISBN-13978-1565925823
- Edition1st
- PublisherO'Reilly Media
- Publication dateJanuary 3, 1999
- LanguageEnglish
- File size1715 KB
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The open-source movement has become a cause célèbre in light of the widespread adoption of Linux, Perl, and Apache as well as its corporate support from Netscape, IBM, and Oracle--and strongly felt opposition from Microsoft. Open Sources doesn't address why these Microsoft foes are throwing their weight behind the movement. Instead, it focuses on the history and philosophy of open-source software (previously referred to as freeware) as an argument for shaping the future of programming. Open Sources is much larger than just a fight with any one company. Instead, it is a revolutionary call to release software development from the vested interests that label new directions in software development as threatening.
This is not to say that opening the source code is an entirely egalitarian and communistic endeavor. These are programmers and startup owners; they want to be able to continue to program for a living. To that end, Open Sources contains strong business profiles from entrepreneurs such as Apache's--and now, O'Reilly & Associates'--Brian Behlendorf, who discusses how to give away software in order to lure customers in for specialized versions. In many ways, this is a hands-on guide, displaying an insider's view of the development process and providing specifics on testing details and altering licensing agreements. However, interspersed with tech talk is a reader-friendly guide for those interested in the future of software development. --Jennifer Buckendorff
From Library Journal
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Chris DiBona is the cofounder of both Konstrux Technologies, which implements gforge for companies, and her sister company, Damage Studios. He also co-edited the O'Reilly book Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Software Revolution and was an editor at Slashdot.org for some time, where he also ran the polls and can be found on TechTV where he does Linux segments for The ScreenSavers.
Product details
- ASIN : B0028N4WKG
- Publisher : O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (January 3, 1999)
- Publication date : January 3, 1999
- Language : English
- File size : 1715 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Print length : 282 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 1565925823
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,290,319 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #629 in Human-Computer Interaction (Kindle Store)
- #1,583 in Human-Computer Interaction (Books)
- #2,417 in Computer Hacking
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Susan Walton is a different kind of autism mom. She and her family tried the diets, the therapy, and even some of the voodoo, but came to know that this stuff alone wasn't going to take her family where they wanted to go. Cherry picking the parts that were helpful but then striking out for new territory, she dedicated herself to finding fun and adventure not just for her own family, but for a thousand families in the San Francisco Bay Area who are part of the group she founded. Jump on board for the ride! Whether these families are swinging from a zipline, surfing in the ocean, or hiding behind a couch, this is a group of families that have fun and want to spread the word: Life is not over after diagnosis! The adventure is just beginning.

Chris DiBona is a Director of open source for Mountain View, Ca. based Google. His team oversees license compliance and supports the open source developer community through programs such as the Google Summer of Code and through the release of open source software projects and patches.
Mr. DiBona is an internationally known advocate of open source software and related methodologies. He occasionally appears on the This Week in Tech and Cranky Geeks podcasts. He is a visiting scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management and has a masters in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Before joining Google, Mr. DiBona was an editor and author for the website Slashdot.org . Additionally, he coedited the award-winning essay compilations "Open Sources" and "Open Sources 2.0" and writes for several publications. He was the host of Floss Weekly with Leo Laporte and made a number of appearances on TechTV's "The Screensavers"
His personal blog can be found at http://dibona.com and he can be reached via email via chris@dibona.com
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After a brief introduction, Eric Raymond has the opening (and closing) essay. In the opening essay he looks at the history of 'hackerdom.' His essay feels strongly influenced by Steven Levy's delightful Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - 25th Anniversary Edition. His closing essay talks about the open sourcing of Netscape, which is interesting as it has both been a success (I'm typing this in a Firefox browser) and a failure (Netscape is gone). But at the time the essay was written, it wasn't known yet how this would play out, making the speculation interesting.
The second essay is from Kirk McKusick about the history of the BSD unix distribution and how the different free BSD distributions got started and how they were related. The third essay is (unfortunately) short and is about how the Internet Engineering Task Force works. I wish they had found a better essay here as the history of the IETF is much broader than here described. The next essay is Richard Stallman, the last MIT hacker, about Free Software Foundation and GNU and building the GNU OS (where is it?). The essay of Stallman is quite political and strongly opinionated, which we ought to expect from RMS.
Next is Michael Tiemann, who is the founder of Cygnus Solutions and one of the main contributors to the gnu/gcc project. His company was one of the early Open Source companies and proved to the industry that you can build a company around Open Source. His company later merged with Red Hat (which isn't in the book). Next is Paul Vixie which IMHO could be left out. He describes "software engineering" as following a waterfall process. Next is Linus Torvalds who just contributed a very short essay about porting linux to different platforms.
Next. Robert Young, the founder of Red Hat to explain the business idea behind Red Hat. Next. Larry Wall, with a rather weird essay about... lines and circles. Next. Brian Behlendorf, one of the lead developers on Apache about different strategies for Open Source companies. Next. Bruce Perens, founder of the Open Source Initiative and creator of the Open Source Definition... talking about that. Next. Tim O'Reilly mumbling about the future of Open Source. Next. Some Netscape people about the Mozilla project. And than Eric Raymonds closing essay.
As you can see from the above line-up, it is quite amazing. Some essays are good, some are ok, some are bad... and some are excellent and insightful. That said, I find the book important as it gives so much different threads of how Open Source developed and how they were related. As a bonus in the book, the appendix contains a digested version of the Tanenbaum/Torvalds flame war on microkernels (which is a must read for anyone interested in OS or Linux history).
I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in history of open source or software development in general. If not, then you can better skip this book as it just talks about... the past :) The book isn't perfect as some essays are ... bad. Thus, 4 stars.
I have to stop now and read more .. :-)
The essays in Open Sources are a mixed bag. Kirk McKusick's history of Berkeley UNIX is great, as is Michael Tiemann's history of Cygnus Solutions, RMS's article about the GNU project, and Bruce Perens' article about licensing issues. Also, I really enjoyed the transcript of the infamous 1992 flame war between Linus and Andy Tanenbaum about the merits of Linux vs. Minix. On the other hand, Paul Vixie's article about software engineering is pretty random, Larry Wall's article does not seem to have a point at all, and Eric Raymond's
second article and Tom Paquin's account of the open-sourcing of Netscape are too self-serving to be useful.
Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. However, the year that has passed since its publication has exposed some of the more outlandish predictions made by its contributors (Eric Raymond said that Windows 2000 would either be canceled or be a complete disaster). My guess is that Open Sources is not destined to become a classic. Rather, in a few years it will be viewed as an interesting but somewhat naive period piece.
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I have to stop now and read more .. :-)

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