Open Source Books

I felt the book had some good points and then other times I was struggling to get myself to pick it back up. Overall worth the read but not in my top 5 list by any means.

The title says it all,
however, the caveat is that if the "instigator" of the particular form of software does not have the "cache" or "credentials" in the open source community then the chances of a REALLY BIG item being developed is rather small. BUT, if the "item" can catch on, then it can be done better and faster than a "paid for development".

This book is a great and very interesting read. While you can get the collection of essays online, for free. I prefer the book, easier on my eyes. ESR (author) tries to keep it straight foreward, however at times he drifts into a technical world, which somewhat flew over my head. If you are interested in the Open Source community, namely what makes it work, and what problems it has in store, this is a great book.
He Gives personal experience which I really value, and he doesn't try and hide the short comings of Open Source Development.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a collection of essays originally meant for programmers and technical managers, written by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail.

I you like a deeper work on Linux development, I can recommend the book "Rebel Code" by Glyn Moody.

fetchmail, is an open-source software utility to retrieve e-mail from a remote mail server. It was developed by Eric S. Raymond from the popclient program, written by Carl Harris. Its chief significance is perhaps that its author, Eric S. Raymond, used it as a model to discuss his theories of open source software development in this book. Some programmers, including Dan Bernstein, getmail creator Charles Cazabon and FreeBSD developer Terry Lambert, have criticized fetchmail's design], its number of security holes, and that it was prematurely put into "maintenance mode". In 2004, a new team of maintainers took over fetchmail development, and laid out development plans that in some cases broke with design decisions that Eric Raymond had made in earlier versions.

The essays in the book describe open-source software, the process of systematically harnessing open develplment and decentralized peer review to lower costs and improve software quality. contrasts two different free software development models:

- The Cathedral model, in which source code is available with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as examples.

- The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process. Raymond also provides anecdotal accounts of his own implementation of this model for the fetchmail project.

The essay's central thesis is Raymond's proposition that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" (which he terms Linus' law): the more widely available the source code is for public testing, scrutiny, and experimentation, the more rapidly all forms of bugs will be discovered. In contrast, Raymond claims that an inordinate amount of time and energy must be spent hunting for bugs in the Cathedral model, since the working version of the code is available only to a few developers.

When O'Reilly Media published the book in 1999, it achieved another distinction by being the first complete and commercially distributed book published under the Open Publication License.

I like this book for many reasons. First of all, it uses lots of specific examples to prove a point. Two, the author was right at the front lines during the formative days of Linux and open source and he does not hide his biases. Three, he is a very insightful guy and he sure as heck knows how to turn a phrase.

That said, the book is not that far removed from a polemic. He has drawn his conclusions and moved on from contemplation to conviction. So if there is any point along the way you disagree, what follows is going to give you frustration.

I'd suggest reading this in conjunction with The Success of Open Source, which despite its title, is far more balanced and has the best history of the open source movement I have ever read. I've given that book 5 stars. The two balance each other out quite nicely.

A majority of the content are out of date now. A typical example is the chapter for Maven that is almost useless. Instead of reading this book, I'd rather go Google.

Seriously, I can't find any other book right now that lays Maven out in such an easy to approach way. All the material online is reference based entirely and my fingers are practically bleeding from digging through google every five seconds. If you've never setup Maven before, buy this book while you still have your hair.

I am an experienced Java developer and new to the J2EE field.
I bought this book to learn how to use the open-source tools with the XP attitude. Mostly for the XDoclet and JUnit.
Well, the examples are not so bad.
There are SO MANY ERRORS *in the code itself*. It happens, I know.
So I entered the web site to check for more information. Nothing !!
No errata and the book's forum is not active AT ALL.
I downloaded the source code for the examples. Half of the book's examples is not there. The web site (and the forum) won't mention anything about it.
The other half is filled with errors.

This is not a professional book !
I did learn something from it. A little bit XDoclet and which tools I should learn and know. But that's all.

WROX publication lost a customer. I won't buy any books they publish.

I bought this book hoping for a quick jumpstart to getting a simple xdoclet/struts app up and running.

The example code from the "Building Struts Apps with Ant and XDoclet" is so bad, it's a disgrace. I spent more time figuring out why their code wasn't even close to working, than I would have if I had just skipped their book altogether. It couldn't work, it never worked, and it shouldn't have been published.

I ordered this book based on the title and the preview content here on Amazon (I couldn't find it at the B&N near my work). I was very pleasantly surprised at the practical, nuts-and-bolts approach that the authors took to XP and the tools in this book. I was also extremely pleased at how well the authors showed the integration of these tools into a sophisticated and professional development environment. This is not easy, especially when working with a wide range of tools which includes
* CVS
* Ant
* XDoclet
* JUnit
* JUnitPerf
* Bugzilla
* JMeter
* Cactus
* jcoverage
* Swing testing tools like Jemmy
* Maven
* Anthill

And even though all these tools are O.S., some projects are very territorial (eg they consider other tools to be the competition) so just reading the docs will not always help you choose the right tool for the right job or learn how to use the tools together.

The code I downloaded from the Wrox site was a little rough (some missing files), but the version I downloaded last week was *much* better and has solved all the earlier problems I was having. I'm glad the authors were responsive and willing to release fixes. Great stuff!

Good straight forward examples... most show the input, the code and the output produced by the code. You need only understand the logic of programming... the book fills in the rest you need to know. I have six or seven books on Perl but always reach for this or The Little Black Book for syntax and examples. Invest in a good editor designed for Perl programming like OptiPerl [with syntax checking and debugger] and you will be well on your way!

Clealy written, and in terms I believe are easily understood by programmers.
Also, wonderful price! (under $2.00)

If you are looking for a book that provides Perl script examples, then this is the book for you. Provides numerous examples of perl scripts in each section, plus then the author breaks down line by line what the script does. I use this book in conjunction with O'Reilly's Learning Perl.

[A review of the 4th Edition, that came out in late 2007.]

One way to learn is to learn by example. Quigley follows this precept in this massive book on Perl. Candidly, there are far slimmer books that describe the syntax of Perl. Typically, these have a few didactic examples. For some people, that suffices. But you might be a newbie to any type of programming. Or perhaps you want a grab bag of many example programs, to search thru in case you can find one to quickly adapt to your needs. In this case, Quigley's book might be well suited.

The examples are easy to grasp. Accompanied by exhaustive supporting text. It doesn't get simpler than this. In some ways, this led to complaints in reviews of earlier editions. A few other reviewers saw the examples as perhaps too trivial. Well they are, to experienced programmers. Newcomers need more support.

The book also goes into an important usage context. Where you combine Perl scripts with CGI to write dynamic web pages. But beware. The book doesn't really discuss on first principles whether you should use this Perl/CGI combination. CGI has been found to be rather cumbersome for dynamic pages. Programmers tend to favour other methods, like JSP [Java Server Pages] and ASP.

I use the Perl language daily (and I love it). I own several of Ellie's books and have taken classes from her in Silicon Valley. The books are clear, the index is excellent, but the examples are too simple. Many examples use input typed in from the keyboard (instead of reading in input from a file). Business applications/corporate applications usually read in input from a file.

If you are a traditionalist and are expecting the usual treatise to counterinsurgency then you will be disappointed. This is an out of the box approach to war in the 21st century. This book is not modern updates to Galula, Kitson, Mao or Trinquier. Examples of some of the topics covered include; "Superempowered Competition", "Open Source Warfare", and Guerrilla Entrepreneurs". This book is not for the faint of heart, it will destroy your conventional notions about counterinsurgency and will require you to completely rethink the "Graduate" level art of war.

Terry Tucker, PhD
Mobile Training Team Battle Staff Trainer
Afghanistan

This is an interesting little book. I think that it may promise more than it delivers, but its lesson is right on. The Foreword relates a key part of the book's thesis (page ix): "[Examples] involve the idea of turning the complexity and power of a developed modern economy from strengths to vulnerabilities."

For one thing, terrorists can use relatively inexpensive techniques to create huge problems. For instance, it cost al-Qaeda about $500,000 for the 9/11 attacks and cost the American economy about $500 billion worth of damage--in the author's words (page x) "a million-to-one payoff ratio."

Other examples: cheap techniques (explosives) have cost Iraq millions upon millions of dollars in lost oil revenue, as pipelines are destroyed and income lost. The book itself is about (page xiv) "rapid chaotic and unexpected events. . . . 'black swans--events so different from what we know, so unpredictable and hidden by uncertainty, that they are impossible to predict with accuracy."

The book talks about the ability of terrorists to learn and use this learning to advantage against state actors. They tend to be more nimble and this provides an advantage. So, complex globalization presents an attractive target for simple responses by terrorist organizations.

An interesting argument. However, there are some questions that arise because of recent developments in Iraq. Robb believes that the antipathy of a variety of actors to the United States is doom. Whether or not the "surge" ends up working, though, it is clear that in the short run many Iraqis who formerly fought against Americans are now working with them against, for example, al-Qaeda. Will this last? or will the formerly antagonistic and currently cooperative groups just outwait Americans? Who knows? But the current situation (November, 2007) suggests a more fluid situation than the author depicts.

Only time will tell the outcomes in Iraq and against terrorists worldwide. The book has an interesting and even powerful logic. But we must wait to see what the evidence tells us in the future.

This book isn't of course as timeless as Lao Tsu's or von Clausewitz's, but it shares space on my desk with these and a few others, simply because it is the only concise fifth-generation warfare (and fourth) reference I've found. John Robb produced a minor watershed which I've tabbed with over a score of Post-It tabs. Nicely written and functionally useful. (Still, by the author's own admission, tentative in the face of our ignorance about the future's potential for yet-unrecognized means of conflict.)

It sure requires a lot of effort to regard life as a pleasant experience when you have to wonder every day if you're going to get blown up in a bus on your way to work, or if there's going to be a sudden blackout, shortage of water or gas. This may seem like a distant scenario, something happening to some poor "unliberated" underdeveloped state - but according to John Robb, disruptions of this kind can take place anytime, anywhere. In fact, they're being prepared as we speak. New York, Madrid and London were merely a sneak preview - and of course, places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Thailand and Chechnya have become classic sites for such disorder. What we are looking at, Robb argues, is a new type of globalized warfare involving small and largely independent "terrorist" cells with lots of cheap and accessible technology (from the internet to explosives). Robb aptly calls them the Global Guerrillas.

Never mind WHY such "nasty people" would want to disrupt your neat way of living: wars have always been fought for myriads of reasons and every murderer can be called a hero, every freedom fighter a terrorist, if you're so inclined. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about people plotting to disrupt other people's way of living (in fact, directly or indirectly, that's what we're all doing, all the time). One of the most refreshing aspects about Robb's book is that he doesn't waste many lines vilifying the global guerrillas, but rather coolly observes and describes their tactics, methods, even finances - and potential to emerge victorious. The one common aspect in all these groups (Al-Qaeda being the most famous) is that they are opposing a state, i.e., a huge organization with the (supposed) monopoly over violence (or security), taxation and all kinds of essential services such as the supply of energy, food, water and health care. And the interesting thing is that the global guerrillas have developed a cunning little trick to actually endanger the legitimacy and power of states: instead of going about waging massive wars with millions of soldiers and billions of explosions (which is really quite expensive), they engage in "systems disruption", damaging or destroying the very infrastructure on which states (and above all the population under their jurisdiction) rely. By blowing up pipelines, electricity grids, bridges, railroads, airplanes and buildings, the guerrillas cause massive damage and financial losses - not to speak of panic and insecurity - all of which end up weighing heavily on the state. For the perpetrators of such attacks, on the other hand, the costs can be minimal, as it is relatively cheap nowadays to organize and execute major disruptive actions. Plus they can be endlessly innovative, learning from each other's mistakes and successes, even though they are not connected or even cooperating with each other. Robb calls this "open-source warfare", analogous to Wikipedia, where millions of people can participate and improve, without need of a "central command". Which, of course, makes it all the more difficult for global guerrillas to be eliminated: you destroy one group here, and in the meantime ten others have sprouted up somewhere else.

Much of the book concentrates on Iraq, not only because it is such an obvious conundrum for America and its allies, but also for its variety of "terrorist" groups wreaking havoc on a daily basis and undermining the West's attempts to "conquer the hearts and minds" of the invaded territory's population. This provides a good basis to observe a (supposedly) powerful state's inability to actually detect, much less control all the insurgency against it. The end-result, Robb predicts, will be the failure of the American intervention. Surprising as that may sound.
With this in mind, Robb provides also countless examples of successful (and quite ingenious) recent operations in other countries, to finally conclude that we have entered a whole new stage in world events: the end of globalization and the beginning of global chaos. As he put it: "Now with the new forms of warfare any small group can wage war... and they will." A chilling prospect, perhaps, but Robb's arguments certainly sound convincing. Especially because he teaches us not to regard warfare as something stable, but rather as en ever evolving human talent, full of surprising twists and turns. The future will be one hell of an adventure. It's just a shame we will (most likely) have to participate in it.

I purchased Brave New War expecting a fresh view, or at least an adequate review, of the contemporary security issues challenging states within the world. Unfortunately, Robb's book adds nothing that cannot be gleaming from current events and occasional sessions reading the newspaper. His argument is outlined within the preface, that globalisation has empower non-state actors by allowing them to gain technological symmetry with modern states and that their attacks require minimal financial resources for spectacular financial impacts upon national and global economies. Unfortunately, this argument is repeated verbatim on nearly every page. The book also makes sweeping generalisations and claims, which include the assertion that traditional interstate warfare is over. There are better sources of information available for both the seasoned and occasional reader elsewhere.

Great book, very informative. Was able to begin working on an existing Joomla site in short order. Also has info on how to use Google Analytics for web stats!

This is the best basic book I have found on Joomla! It's well written, with lots of tips for building a well thought out site with Joomla! I also learned much about how to think through site layout, and what keeps end users interested. We have built a really nice Intranet site with the knowledge gained from this book. Good info on nice Joomla plugins and other useful packages such as FreeMind.

These technical books are expensive (I paid full price for this in a bookstore) but worth every penny when they provide the answers to those inevitable snags you hit on a project. This book, however, almost never had the answers I needed. Mainly it points out the features in the Joomla admin interface, but that I could figure out on my own. I wanted to know things like how to download a template and customize it for my site. Instead the book tells you where the CSS code is and that you "can edit it" -- duh! In not anticipating and helping me through typical development tangles, I found the book an expensive, boring, barely helpful description of the Joomla admin tools. Save some money -- there are much better helps available free by searching Google.

I was initially very pleased with this book, and with help from this book, I was able to get a basic Joomla website running in a day or so. However as other reviewers have noted it seems to be missing several chapters that should provide details and examples of how to use menus, modules and articles together to create a good Joomla website.

The author raves about the Leo outline editor but never shows how to actually implement the outline using the Joomla menus etc. The author touches on some advanced issues such as creating your own template or an extension, but does not explain how to use the templates or extensions that come with Joomla. For example he states that "The parameters for Mod_mainmenu can change everything from the menu style to the menu hierarchy" but provides no examples and then proceeds to list the more advanced options! At a minimum he should explain how modules position content as left, main, right etc. Also as an example of poor organization this topic is in "Extensions - Default Site Modules - Main Menu" rather than "Adding Menus to Point to Content".

Figuring out how to modify a template and use modules so that content is placed where you want it, is perhaps the hardest aspect of Joomla. I'm still struggling to understand what all the CSS styles are used for. The author provides a brief intro to CSS but it would be nice to have a list of the key Joomla CSS styles and where they are used, plus some real world examples of (say) changing a color scheme or widening a column.

I'm puzzled by the many glowing reviews for this book! It gets off to a good start but then wanders off to discuss editors, extensions, analytics etc. rather than providing a good foundation for building a solid Joomla website.

Let me start off by saying I am not a programmer or developer, but I have been exposed to and tinkered with html, `view source' on web pages and quite a few Firefox add-ons to know enough to be dangerous. For several years, I have wanted to create my own website, but just did not want to devote the time it took UNTIL something came along to ease the process. That's where CMS comes in. Also, I wanted to go with a web hosting company, and somehow combine the two. I did my research on both and for the former opted to use Joomla 1.5.

However, after many many frustrating hours of searching forums and going down fruitless paths via search engines, trying just to get basics answers on where to begin, I came across this book. It answers:
-the requirements and other inter dependencies of installing Joomla locally
-the same for using with my hosting company
-step by step instructions for above
-tools you can use to further plan and design your website.
All in all this is what I needed, and this book gave me that. Over the span of a weekend, I had a shell of my site designed, and at least a landing page loaded. It kept me from giving up hope yet once again, so now I can muddle along at my own pace.

CONS:
Not a Reference Guide. Many of the GUI features are not discussed, let alone described. Joomla features numerous drop downs, and many of these are not addressed.
Significant gaps. The author states in Chapter 4 about Menu Manager "...The Menu Manager is truly the core of the Joomla system. Second only to the Article Manager, proper configuration of the Menu Manager is critical to your site's user appeal." While factual, there is no 'meat' regarding Menu Manager further in the book. A brief overview of the menu types are discussed previously, but we only get 3 screen gabs and a few additional paragraphs.

Summary. As stated, this book was vital in allowing me to begin using Joomla, for which I was unable to find any other source of information. It is helpful in other ways as well. But I am now searching for a second book, with more substance on the Hows and Whys.

This is my favorite technical book. I read it cover to cover, which is unusual for me but this book was just that good -- comprehensive and quite easy to understand.

It helped me move from CVS to SVN smoothly and with confidence. I also find it to be a great reference to come back to for a refresher here and there.

This book is for Subversion what Ansel Adams' The Camera is for photography: The perfect first step and, for some, the last step they need.

Excellent book to get kick started on SVN. The examples given in the book are very practical and reinforce learning. It would be more valuable if it could include some help for people who are looking to migrate to SVN from clearcase

This book is targeted at someone who is likely already familiar with version control systems (as it frequently refers back to differences with CVS), yet tries to be for the beginner as well. As an experienced user (as I am) you will have to wade through a lot of verbiage to get to what you want. The author uses a conversational style. I got all I could from this book in two frustrating hours, when what I really wanted was a more terse reference.

I had been using subversion for a few years before I got this book. I was not good at it, I wouldn't even say that I was proficient! This book met me right where I was and helped me to gain confidence and proficiency.
It was a little bit of a pain to have to follow through the examples from the beginning of the book. Nonetheless, I find it to be very useful.

This book is very nice on its propouse. Covers a lot of questions about Version Control and Subversion. Actually nice and objective explanations on the uses and the greater resources that this tool offer us.

The thing that really is missing here, for me, would be examples of "pragmatic" setup of diversified envirioments, I mean, a good evirioment for Web App developing is completely forgotten here. And so for other applications too, such as the development of this self Book. They mentioned as greate note that they used Version Control on this book, actually moved to Subversion, but no topics on Subversioning a Book development.

So, I just think they could expend another hundred pages and go deepier on pratical examples of more sorted applications that Version Controling with Subversion can have.

The book itself is the only one on this matter. It is well written with tons of examples. I would consider this book as a must for those who are writing the
Cross-Platform GUI using open source libs. The book came very fast and in a perfect condition. I would highly recommend buying books from this seller.

This book is very complete.
It explains the basics and all the way through the most complex capabilities of the wxWidgets library.
The CD included contains tons of useful code and additional utilities.
Very good product - I recommend it.

The definitive book on wxWindows (now wxWidgets). This can be found online but I do like the printed books better.

Covers mostly everything a novice (to wxWidgets) needs to get started on multi-platform applications.

This is the only wxWidgets book so far so it's not like you have many choices! I read this book twice and then the official documentation and I still use this book as a reference sometimes. This book has a TON of errata though so the next release hopefully they are more careful with editing...

I highly recommend getting this book if you want to learn wxWidgets and cross-platform application writing!

Good reference books seem to be hard to come by lately. Good reference books give you insight and a fuller understanding of the inner workings of whatever their subject matter might be. This is not the case of this book.

You need "Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets" only because the standard wxWidgets documentation is so very crude (no one to blame there, except each and every one of us for not contributing better documentation) and because its source code (as well as part of the core development team, I dare add) is so unfriendly to tools like Doxygen. Smart's book is what the wxWidgets online documentation would have been in a perfect world. No more and no less. The author has done a good job compiling and explaining with sample code the basic usage of most wxWidgets components, but you will not emerge a wxWidgets guru after reading this book. For example, just half a page is dedicated to explaining the by no means trivial wxObject class.

You will be disappointed if you are expecting a mind-opening book, the likes of Petzold's classic "Programming Windows", or Prosise's "Programming MFC", or Wall's "Programming Perl" (just to name a few excellent books from a time when the pace of technology was slower and authors still had time to put together great tutorial/reference works), but having a book like this is probably better than no book at all and buying it is a way to support the project, after all.

The essays are mostly a retelling of the history of open source software. I find it curious how much was written about Netscape, an enterprise that ultimately failed. With hindsight I would say that converting to open source is not a remedy for a poor business model. Poor, as used here, is not an absolute measure. Netscape was simply destroyed by a fierce competitor. Maybe the time was not yet ripe for open source software.

I found Tim O'Reily's concept of infoware to be very interesting. Today I would call them web applications as opposed to desktop applications not only because they are served from a web-server but also because they use the vast resources available on the web.

Brian Behlendorf comments on open source's position in the spectrum of software. It is interesting to see how this has changed over the past nine years. Initially open source was mainly infrastructure/back-end. While these areas are still predominant (LAMP), a lot of user software, specially CMS, is making a strong showing. Since these user systems are written mostly in interpreted languages like php, the question of open source, per se, becomes moot.

What is sorely missing is an economic theory of open source software. None of the authors seems familiar with the law of increasing returns which, according to Brain Arthur, is the economic law governing proprietary software. A discussion of this subject would help in developing sound business models for open source.

Although I'm not too satisfied with this book I'm ordering the sequel Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution

All the essays are well written, enjoyable, informative and a great read. Anyone interested in open source software, where S/W development might be going and Unix/Linux/GNU software in particular, should read this book. One or two essays showing their age, but still worth every penny. Buy it, read it, then encourage your friends to read it as well.

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.

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.

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.

Tomorrow I'm going to drive into town and finalize my drop. I'm dropping out of college, getting a job at a warehouse, and teaching myself how to program. I've been buying, borrowing, stealing, and checking out all the books I can on software design. I'm getting books from the most utilitarian (How to Write Visual C++ for Windows) to the most abstract (Human Interface by Jef Raskin). I checked this book out from the university library before I had decided one hundred percent to drop.

I knew that Richard Stallman (RMS) had wrote the compiler I use on Linux and I knew that this compiler was part of a larger effort to create an Operating System of the Future. This interested me, because I had been playing around with assembly language to write a simple game for the Atari 2600 (a video game console released in 1977; it does not have an operating system so every game interacts directly with the hardware) and a simple operating system for my x86 (standard architecture for a personal computer) laptop.

I also knew that RMS viewed proprietary software an morally wrong. This interested me a lot, because I was still on the fence about whether I was going to release my software (that I would hypothetically make) under a proprietary or open source development model.

After reading the entire book once and a few chapters twice, I don't think I learned anything more about either of these two original points of interest. This wouldn't be that big of a deal, if the book focused on something else. I would read a few chapters, realized I'm not the target audience, and put the book down. The book didn't really have another focus though.

The book's whole deal seems to be trying to let you get to know RMS. Take you into his world, and see things as he does. The book covers aspects of his childhood and his college life. My problem, is that author never goes into detail. He opens RMS's head and takes a peak inside. But just a peak. He stops short of climbing in and looking through RMS's eyes. So when the author opens his mind to us, to climb in, and look through the author's eyes; all we get is the same peak he saw. You're not going to be able to read this book and get even the shortest look through RMS's eyes.

I'm going to explain one example, that really bugged me. The author talks about the AI Lab at MIT when RMS went there. The author compares it to an opium den. The author quotes people comparing it an opium den. The author makes a metaphor about RMS using it like and opium den. Then the author stops. The author just changes course. At that point I wanted to scream STOP into his ear. I wanted to grab the brake lever, wrench it back, and let sparks shower the corn fields. I wanted to demand the author ask RMS a thousand questions about this. Did RMS regularly sleep in the AI Lab? what was it like to wake with students coming in to learn? did anyone personally criticize RMS for acting like an opium/technology addict? how did he react? how did the experience effect him? did other people sleep in the AI Lab? how'd they get along with RMS? what were the computers in the AI Lab like? what kind of software were the writing in the AI lab? how did the software work? what was MIT's position on the copyright for the software? The author just glosses over all of these little details. He does not focus on the technical, legal, political, or social side of things; and it leaves the book feeling soulless.

There really isn't another biography on RMS, though. If I read my review, and knew how much I wouldn't like this book, I still would have check it out. If you're thinking about buying the book then go to the following url: http://www.faifzilla.org/ch05.html

That url is chapter five. Chapter five is far and away the best part of the book. It covers a day where the author drives to the house where RMS is living, goes to lunch with him, and does an interview on him. This chapter gives you some concrete liquid information on RMS's touchingly human aging. The smaller, lighter keyboard he fastens over his standard for the laptop. The weight he's put on, since he had to stop dancing (folk) and how much he misses dancing. You get some insight (dim though it may be) into RMS actual life style for the first time as well. The author also shows a lot about himself, perhaps unintentionally, in this chapter.

If you read chapter five and you don't like it, you will hate this book. If you read chapter five and it's all right, you will not like this book. If you read chapter five and you really dig it, then you are the lucky, insane gentleman who gets the honor of digging this book.

Let me just say that RMS and myself differ widely on many issues. I initially got this book from my local libary so I could gain insight into RMS's mind and determine why "free software" is so important.

I came away with a better understanding based on his childhood thru college years. It seems to me that his father played a very pivotal role in his early development by taking every opportunity to belittle him and make him feel as though he were insignificant. His mother was so very proud of him that her accounts of his talent are almost mythical. IMHO I think much of what he became was governed by him wanting to distance himself from his father and at the same time live up to his mother's respect. The divorce only enforced his view that his father was very much like a proprietary technology and his mother was very much like "the world is your oyster" now go make a name for yourself and MAKE people happy.

The arguement that software should be "free" or "open source" minimizes the amount of time that actually goes into creating a large piece of software. Throughout the book I was looking for that one "killer" app that RMS created from nothing and I was not able to find it. I'm not talking about seeing something and knowing that you can do it better. I'm talking about actually seeing a problem and creating a software solution where none existed before. I didn't see that. Furthermore, I kept wondering where RMS was getting the funds to continue on his journey only to discover that he was staying at different places for free, people were probably buying him breakfast, lunch, and dinner, etc. He was supporting himself by lecturing and winning awards of some kind or another. Certainly $240K is enough to live on for a few years.

Towards the end it became clear that in the end nothing is truly "free" or "open." Take for example many of the people who work on "free" or "open" software, first many if not most rely on code that has been "opened" and they are using it as a springboard and many of the "researchers" who develope software do so within institutions where they are paid a salary or grant, or something...where does that money come from? It comes from people who pay taxes...who work for companies with proprietary technology including software, hardware, materials, processes, etc...they have trade secrets and patens. In addition much is made about the viability of creating profit through "free" or "open" business models. Sure you can get some money by consulting/supporting your "free" or "open" software, but that is miniscule to the amount you can get by selling software...the two just don't compare.

For the commercial proprietary companies mentioned like IBM, Sun Microsystems, Netscape, etc. Well at the heart of these companies is hardware and patented proprietary technology. If you can't beat the competition on one level then the next best thing is to increase the markets perceived utility of your products by giving them away and "opening" them up so that by some chance you can leverage the increased awareness and creativity by latching on your hardware products...just along for the ride.

The only truly "free" or "open" sources I would credit with being as such are those where the person has created from scratch their own ideas and used those ideas to write code that is open to anything including non-peer publishing. Also this person would be in no way receiving any $$$ from any source that has ties to proprietary technologies including stock grants, trust funds, donations for speaking engagements where the donors are associated with such proprietary technologies.

Will "free" or "open" software prevail...to a small degree perhaps? Will they become the defacto standard within software...I don't think so? Why not...well given that Navigator was 30 million lines of code it would take a small army of people a very long time to replicate that if they didn't use some other code as a base, and given how many egos there are within the developer communities I just don't see that kind of collaboration occuring in a short period of time. Firefox has become a hit after this book was published, but it is basically Navigator with some other stuff. OpenOffice.org is the same way though this is just an attempt on Sun's part to entice users to their side or at the least reduce the reserves of their competitors.

In the end this book does a good job of solidifying for myself, at least, an understanding of why RMS is the way he is and why profit ultimately provides the largest innovations within the mainstream while also providing the inevitable end to companies who attempt to drive a wedge between an idea and reality.

Wait until the free energy, free material reorginization, and free will movements start. Imagine telling a company that those digital documents which contain all their IP need to be made public if they concern a new way of generating power, imagine material reorganization such that devices can be created from some basic materials...free those designs...they're digital after all, imagine people exercising their "will" to no longer live under communist rule...China is in for a big change!!!

I am finding it difficult to finish this book (@ chap. 8).
Apparently, Stallman is perfect and doesn't do anything wrong, and if it appears so it's because it's done for a reason. This is by far the least critical biography/history ever.

It's great to read the story of the master who began this Free Software revolution!

FREE AS IN FREEDOM is Sam Williams' biography of legendary software developer and political thinker Richard Stallman. Founder of the GNU project, Stallman is little-known outside of a relatively small world of computing cognoscenti, but without him Linux and many other modern computing innovations would hardly be possible. In an interesting twist, the publisher O'Reilly has released this book under the GNU Free Documentation License, meaning that the book may be freely copied and sold.

The book goes from Stallman's youth in New York of the 1950s and 1960s all the way to the "free software" vs "open source" debate continuing into 2001. Strangely, the late 1980s are treated skimpily; the reader basically goes from the 1983 announcement of the GNU project to the introduction of Linux in 1993 in a couple of pages. A strength of the book is the range of Stallman's acquaintances that Williams was able to interview: many of his fellow students at Harvard and co-workers in MIT's AI lab contributed to the book, and even Stallman's mother gives a great deal of comment. Stallman is a notoriously difficult person to get along with. Williams frankly discusses the possibility that his lack of social skills is due to autism, but notes that against this Stallman shows marvellous ingenuity in computing. Williams does try to walk a tightrope here between dispassionate reporting about a controversial figure and giving him too much praise. Whether you admire Stallman as a modern-day saint or despise him as a pinko Communist, you'll be comfortable with the tone of this work.

The book was clearly written for a hardly-technical audience. Concepts like the Emacs editor are gently described in depth that will tire us readers who have been using it for years. The book also could have benefitted from more proofreading. There are some typos, and redundant introduction of commentators who were introduced already one or two pages before. So, this is an imperfect biography. I enjoyed it and learned a lot about a fascinating figure, but it would be nice had the book included a little more detail about GNU's formative years and hadn't assumed a non-technical audience.

As a developer with many years IT experience in control systems and only a little in databases and none with Postgres, I found this book to be extremely helpful. It covered a huge amount of topics with examples and put them together in a way that made it more efficient than googling!

It helped that I knew what topics I needed in looking for answers but the chapters were self explantory in the topics they covered which I believe would allow a beginner to make quick progress in learning Postgres.

Cavaet: If you are after a book to learn SQL and database design (normal forms) you will be disappointed, this book is not for you.

I am a database application developer with MS SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase and many other RDBMSs experience.
This book allowed me to start working on PostgreSQL immediately.
Pro: comprehensive, good examples, good supplement to the documentation.
Cons: is not deep enough for me (does not explain format of a transaction log file or WAL file, for example), but, I guess, I should read the PostgreSQL code for this.
If you are new to databases you would need to read some other books first.

PostgreSQL 2nd Edition is a phenomenal book if you're a programmer, and a great book if you're a non-programming admin. As someone whose programming ability reaches only ever so slightly beyond bash scripting and WSH, the parts of this book that were really worthwhile to me were those devoted to the administration of PostgreSQL. Backing up, recovering, and performance tuning were excellent resources, especially to someone who had never set up or administered a database. Speaking of which, the very beginning of the book, covering what exactly a database is, terminology, and setting up and creating schema were invaluable. To have all the information in PostgreSQL 2nd Edition consolidated in this one book makes it a must-have for any admin's bookshelf. The only reason it didn't get 5 stars from me was because I'm not a programmer, and I couldn't take away every single ounce this great resource had to offer.

This book lives up to it's claims for "the comprehensive guide to building, programming and administering postgresql databases". I'm a MySQL guy, but may have to do a little pgsql to support a third party app, so I was looking for a book that would bring me up to speed.

The quick review is this... I give this book 3 stars, because it's so huge and covers so much territory that, in my opinion, it does a middling job of it. I would have preferred a more focussed book. I think, given it's goal of being so comprehensive, it is about as good as it could be and if you really need to know everything - from sql, to developing extensions, to embedding this in your c/c++ programs and administering things AND want a single book that covers it this is probably the book for you. If you don't need quite that much, or are willing to go to more than one book to get it, I think you would be better served to look elsewhere.

The longer review...

Honestly, I don't know why books on databases almost invariably are terribly dry reads, but this book, following the odds, falls into that category. It's a hefty tome weighing in at about 1000 pages divided into 3 sections.

The first category, about a quarter of the book, is an introduction to sql and postgresql in particular. It does quite a nice job of introducing your standard sql commands, datatypes and basic administrative commands (like creating tables and the like). This part goes from basic to fairly advanced, covering topics like outer joins and creating new datatypes. I suspect it'll be review for those familiar with sql but reasonably usable for those delving into sql, even if they don't immediately understand all of the more advanced concepts.

The section ends with a chapter on performance, something I was particularly interested in given postgresql's reputation. Here the authors talk about standard performancy things like indexes, using various tools to figure out what a particular query is actually doing, all worthwhile. But they never go into any detail about the performance implications of using some of the more advanced postgresql features like composite types and table inheritance. I was quite disappointed to find not even a whisper of this type of information in the book.

The second section, about half the book covers programming with postgresql. This is a very broad chapter - covering many aspects of what it means to program this database. From server side programming using PL/pgSQL to extending the database with custom functions and types. They discuss creating clients in c, c++, java, perl, php, tcl, python and .net. Each one of these languages gets a chapter about 30-50 pages long where they go over the basics of how that language typically connects to the database and then goes through a process of creating a basic client and refining over the course of 4 or 5 iterations to become more and more robust and full featured. This is the bulk of the book and because it's so wide spread, I think most people will only be interested in one or two of these chapters - the rest of which will probably be uninteresting.

The last section is the final quarter of the book where they go over the administrative requirements of the database. They admirably try to direct people to download and compile their own binaries, but cover installation from binary on unix and windows. They have an excellent reference on the things you can tweak to configure the runtime environment. They also cover backing up the database, replication, internationalization and security. Although they mention performance optimization in the intro to the section, they don't actually discuss it anywhere in the section.

So, to sum up. If you really need to know about all aspects of pgsql and are looking for a one stop shop, this book is - I think - as good as you're going to find. But if you're looking into only a particular aspect (developing, administereing, etc..) or don't mind going to more than one, I feel confident that there's other books out there that will cover those topics in better detail.

I'm upset that this book that I've been trusting for the past month or two has such an egregious error in its discussion of regular expressions on page 51. I wish the authors had left out any discussion of regexes if they weren't going to actually test their assumptions about a topic on which I assume they know little. :-(