Description
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
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%20
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
Présentation de l'éditeur
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."
