Recently finished reading Open Sources 2.0. That implies there was a 1.0 version. There was and it was published in 1999, and was subtitled 'Voices from the Revolution'. Open source was new then (and on a personal level, I was in the 9th grade, and probably had never touched a computer). On a recent landmark trip I came across the second installment. It was published in 2005, and is subtitled 'The continuing evolution'. Read the second and then reread the first (it is available online). Let me add that most of what I am going to say is well captured by the subtitles.
At the time of the first book, Open source was a new invention, and despite the technical prowess demonstrated by linux, gcc and so on, not many large corporations had embraced it. Programmers wrote most (I think all) of the essays. So we have, for example, essays by Richard Stallman, Linus Torlvalds, Larry Wall and Michael Tiemann, most of them focusing on why, as per the author, open source/free software works. By the time the second installment came out, open source software had established itself as the backbone of many organizations, and it focuses more on how that came about. One persistent theme is commoditization. Open source infrastructure components like OSs, databases and web servers reduce the overall cost of a software solution for the customer, which in turn allows corporations to expand their markets. As can be guessed, most of the essays in the second book are written by business guys. We also see discussions about open source business models (e.g. Dual licensing vs traditional support models), which may sound rather dull, but is not. While the first book focused exclusively on software, in the secod book we see open source principles being applied to law (groklaw), mass collaboration (wikipedia) and even biology. The books are a treasure trove of information. But in the interests of truth let me also add that three or four essays in the second book put me to uninterruptable sleep (none in the first did).
If I had to pick a favorite, Jeremy Allison's (a lead Samba developer) essay comparing and contrasting POSIX and Win32 is unquestionably the winner for the second book. Picking a winner for the first one is not so easy, but I would say Michael Tiemann's essay about the journey of Cygnus. I learned the most from it. Also the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate in the appendix. It is a mail thread from 1992 with Andrew Tanenbaum (creator of Minix and author of OS and Networking textbooks I am sure you read while in college) and Linus and others discussing minix/linux/portability/microkernels vs monolithic kernels and so on. Consider this, it was thought HURD/BSD would soon replace Linux, and SPARC will do the same to 386. How things turn out!
And here we are at the end, and I wonder, who will be the authors of the third version.
At the time of the first book, Open source was a new invention, and despite the technical prowess demonstrated by linux, gcc and so on, not many large corporations had embraced it. Programmers wrote most (I think all) of the essays. So we have, for example, essays by Richard Stallman, Linus Torlvalds, Larry Wall and Michael Tiemann, most of them focusing on why, as per the author, open source/free software works. By the time the second installment came out, open source software had established itself as the backbone of many organizations, and it focuses more on how that came about. One persistent theme is commoditization. Open source infrastructure components like OSs, databases and web servers reduce the overall cost of a software solution for the customer, which in turn allows corporations to expand their markets. As can be guessed, most of the essays in the second book are written by business guys. We also see discussions about open source business models (e.g. Dual licensing vs traditional support models), which may sound rather dull, but is not. While the first book focused exclusively on software, in the secod book we see open source principles being applied to law (groklaw), mass collaboration (wikipedia) and even biology. The books are a treasure trove of information. But in the interests of truth let me also add that three or four essays in the second book put me to uninterruptable sleep (none in the first did).
If I had to pick a favorite, Jeremy Allison's (a lead Samba developer) essay comparing and contrasting POSIX and Win32 is unquestionably the winner for the second book. Picking a winner for the first one is not so easy, but I would say Michael Tiemann's essay about the journey of Cygnus. I learned the most from it. Also the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate in the appendix. It is a mail thread from 1992 with Andrew Tanenbaum (creator of Minix and author of OS and Networking textbooks I am sure you read while in college) and Linus and others discussing minix/linux/portability/microkernels vs monolithic kernels and so on. Consider this, it was thought HURD/BSD would soon replace Linux, and SPARC will do the same to 386. How things turn out!
And here we are at the end, and I wonder, who will be the authors of the third version.
2 comments:
the effect is for good..coz this review is also superb!
great going :)
Hehe.. Thanku Thanku
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