Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

Rating:
Summary: Light But Interesting Read
Review: Well the title was right. The book is "Just for Fun". It is a lighthearted look at Linus' short life so far. Sharing both
his Finnish heritage (and experiences in Finland) as well as well as his Silicon Valley life I found some connection to his
experiences. I laughed at his frank description of the lack of any life in San Jose. Although his childhood and adolescent
experiences in dealing with his geekiness was amusing they were just a bit much. If was a bit surprising that the author was
has written for Red Herring magazine was a little light on the technical side of things.

Two things spoke to me however. His personal observations on the Open Source Movement versus commercial software development; and his detailed account of why work has to be fun.

He talks about how work climbs the evolutionary latter from being neccasary for survival, to the need to be a part of a greater social cause and then just for plain fun. The three part evolutionary process helps to explain how dedicated hackers
help to create Linux while not directly benefiting financially.

The most interesting discussion I took from this book however was his opinions on the Open Source versus the Commercial software industry (Redmond, Washington). He gives some great examples of the US market for cell phones compared with Europe. He states that because the Europeans cooperated on an agreement on standards first this led to levels of innovation far greater than that experienced here. I also found his example of the music industry compelling. His claim is that the MP3 standard (as well as file swapping services) started in reaction to the user UN-friendly policies of the music industry of pushing one hit song CDs down the consumers throat. To get around buying a CD with only one or two songs that are worth hearing, consumers have circumvented the system by swapping only those one or two songs that are any good.

A light read with some interesting insights. If you want to read more about the Open Source Movement however there are books out there which present it in greater detail.