Rating: 
Summary: Good background material to the open source movement
Review: It's general background and overview material and even if you don't like all articles (I disliked the one by Larry Wall, sorry, Larry, I do like Perl), it's a definite buy for people interested in software development methods in general or free software development in particular.Mind you, it's not a scientific or very theoretical book, but it does have some opinions and theories in it (Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, Tim O'Reilly). So, if you like theory on software development, it's a definite buy. If you're a hacker already, well maybe, but you might already know parts of it. Finally, there is definitely some anti-MS sentiment in there. However maybe it's just anti-baddd-software. Anyway, just so you know.... As far as I am concerned: buy, buy, BUY!
Rating:
Summary: a well-intentioned but naive view of software
Review: Open Sources is a collection of essays by people who have been involved in a prominent way in what is being called "the open source revolution." The authors are all very bright people with good intentions and diverse viewpoints; this makes for interesting reading. However, I had a problem with the introduction. In fact, I hated it. It attempts to couch the issue of free vs. non-free software in religious terms: in the bad old days, free software only came from universities or other government-funded research. Then, a few companies saw the light and began to open-source their software; currently the industry is divided between these companies (the saved) and the rest of the companies (the damned) who will spiral into oblivion due to their proprietary selfishness. I thought the presence of this sort of rhetoric in the introduction, which sets the tone for the rest of the book, was particularly unfortunate. 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.
Rating:
Summary: a well-intentioned but naive view of software
Review: Open Sources is a collection of essays by people who have been involved in a prominent way in what is being called "the open source revolution." The authors are all very bright people with good intentions and diverse viewpoints; this makes for interesting reading. However, I had a problem with the introduction. In fact, I hated it. It attempts to couch the issue of free vs. non-free software in religious terms: in the bad old days, free software only came from universities or other government-funded research. Then, a few companies saw the light and began to open-source their software; currently the industry is divided between these companies (the saved) and the rest of the companies (the damned) who will spiral into oblivion due to their proprietary selfishness. I thought the presence of this sort of rhetoric in the introduction, which sets the tone for the rest of the book, was particularly unfortunate. 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.
Rating:
Summary: a well-intentioned but naive view of software
Review: Open Sources is a collection of essays by people who have been involved in a prominent way in what is being called "the open source revolution." The authors are all very bright people with good intentions and diverse viewpoints; this makes for interesting reading. However, I had a problem with the introduction. In fact, I hated it. It attempts to couch the issue of free vs. non-free software in religious terms: in the bad old days, free software only came from universities or other government-funded research. Then, a few companies saw the light and began to open-source their software; currently the industry is divided between these companies (the saved) and the rest of the companies (the damned) who will spiral into oblivion due to their proprietary selfishness. I thought the presence of this sort of rhetoric in the introduction, which sets the tone for the rest of the book, was particularly unfortunate. 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Very informative and interesting.
Review: Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution is an extremely interesting book about Open Sourcing in the real world consisting of essays by the people on the inside of the Open Source revolution.
Rating: 
Summary: Contradictions..
Review: The book in itself, while published by a reputable company such as O'Reilly is well-defined in its purpose, I have to disagree with O'Reilly's choice of authors. In the open source economic model, there is a clear-cut war being waged between the "haves" and "have-nots". The "haves" represented by Red Hat Software, VA Linux, etc. are fighting (though, altogether covertly) to establish themselves as a real business entity, thus a force to reckon with. This includes heavy-handed statements made by the CEO's of these companies, who deep-down know that they're in it for 3 things: (1) money; (2) name; (3) fame. These companies are living in an illusionary world where they see themselves as the representatives of the underdog, against "bad" Microsoft corp. The "have-nots" represented by people such as Eric Raymond, and Bruce Perens (both who are closely affiliated) are trying to establish themselves as "leaders" of a "movement", thinking that it was their effort that made Netscape release licensing restrictions on it's source code for Communicator. All of this is contradictory, because Microsoft simply does not care, the public (with the exception of the poor college student desperate for a cause) does not care, and the business world does not care what these symbolic fools represent. The only person who matters in Linux is Mr. Linus Torvalds, because it's his product, his direction, and ultimately his effort that makes the product so unique. Taking credit for "getting a company to open its source" is nothing less than a fallacious untruth; something that the likes of Eric Raymond are quick to line up for. The fact is Netscape released its source because of economic pressure from Microsoft, and the free-market system; it had an inferior product thus needed free developers, so it did what few other companies would ever do. Taking credit for saving the world from the big, bad wolf, is hardly necessary, when the beast is busy feeding on 90% of the world's market.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a knockout
Review: The open source movement is at the moment the most singificant movement in modern media. It is literally returning control of media to individuals after years of corporatization. It is the movement that may keep the Net and Web free. It's about the empowering possibilities of technology in general, and the Net in particular. This book is a fabulous history of its birth and importance, very powerfully written and clear. The software is one thing, but the ideas behind the software are really what Open Source is about. That is perfectly captured in this book, a publication people despeately need to read..
Rating: 
Summary: Intresting mainly to see the differeces among the authors...
Review: This book is an interesting window on the Open Source world. It is a strange planet with strange people. Some crazy idealist like R. Stallman (I like the guy very much), some smart and intelligent person like L. Torvald (he did a very good job with Linux). In between someone that was just in the right place at the right time, but who doesn't deserve so much space and celebrity. I am talking about a person that seems confused as the language he invented: Larry Wall. His contribution does not require further comments.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating essays
Review: This book was the first O'Reilly book to contain essays about the concept of Open Source and was later followed by the book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. While some essays may seem similar to the latter, each of them are still fascinating and offer an insightful look into what makes Open Source work and why this phenomenon has become its own industry. Among the essays here are included a "history" of Unix, essays about Cygnus (who offers a source code complier program) and Red Hat (who offers Linux), two businesses that sell services related to open source, an essay about the effects of releasing open source code for Netscape, one about the GNU Operating System and even one by Linux Torvals, the "father" of Linux. What's continually fascinating to me the more I read about Open Source is the amount of time and energy others voluntarily put into an open source project to make it work that much better. Not to mention the entire "society" that is built around Open Source. An interesting read, along with the Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Rating:
Summary: good document - articles a mixed bag (naturally)
Review: This is a good idea on O'Reilly's part to try to document the history and goals of the Open Source movement, which had roots in several college campuses and research labs in the '70s and '80s, and became news in the late '90s with the popularity of Linux, Apache, and the decision of Netscape to open its browser source. The best introductory piece, however, is probably Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar" which is not in this book(O'Reilly publishes it separately, but it's available free on the Web and short enough to be read in one sitting). As for this collection, I liked Robert Young's business case for distributing open source - his story of how Red Hat was launched reminds me of the Compaq tale of "three guys in a restaurant". The Apache article is also quite good, and Linus Torvalds offers a brief but interesting (and characteristically opinionated) article about how Linux evolved technically. There's also a good article discussing the various open source licenses (BSD, GPL, Netscape, etc) and what they do and don't restrict. Others I was less impressed with. Stallman's article is predictable and self-serving. He explains how he evolved his software-as-gift philosophy but doesn't come close to terms with how the software industry can support substantial employment if all source is given away. There's yet another history of the different branches of BSD Unix. There's a breathtaking inside account of the launch of Mozilla which ends with the fancy Silicon Valley party when development has finally gotten underway. The low point is Larry Wall's "essay", which is a frankly ridiculous waste of time and print. Although this is a mixed bag, there's enough reference material and interesting points of view to keep the book around.
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