Open Source Books

I've managed to get about halfway through this book so far. It's NOT an easy read. Coverage and detail are excellent, however, and if you're interested in plumbing the depths of how MySql works, I would recommend this book as a solid reference for improving your overall knowledge.

No, I am not associated with the authors in any way. I was looking for a book for MySQL that was beyond "this is a database, here is how you select".

I wanted something more challenging that covered topics like clustering, backups, etc.

This book dives deep into MySQL database use and design, including detailed information on indexes, optimizations, etc.

Very good read. I totally recommend this book.

cbmeeks

This book is a great expert overview of all that is current in MySQL 5. This covers both the SQL interaction with the database and the management. There are aspects that users often don't use in any SQL platform, and it is a shame. The effort expended to learn stored procedures and custom functions is greatly rewarded in code creation and support. This is another book I rate as ROI super positive.

Highly indicated reading for any database designer involved in developing a major application or in optimizing database operations using MySQL, this intermediate/advanced level book assumes the reader has a general knowledge of database operations and some familiarity with MySQL database system. However, should such awareness be lacking, the book is sprinkled generously with additional source of information to remedy the deficiency. From conceptualizing and elaborating a database to fit business needs to implementing it in an efficient manner, the author takes the reader deep into the inner workings of MySQL in order to optimize database operations. Tools for benchmarking and profiling, which are essentials to indicate where coding performance could be improved, are explored in an insightful manner.
As much as it is possible to make a book on data processing, much less database innards interesting and captivating reading, the author has done an excellent job in this regard.
Overall, a must reading for any MySQL developer looking into enhancing his/her skills.

For people like me who have a good understanding of MYSQL, the next logical step would be this book. I already know about stored procedures, transactions and the basics of triggers, but I want to learn more about these topics in more "real-world" scenarios in how to develop larger, enterprise-wide applications. Also I want to know more about other advanced topics that I may not even know to think about. If this sounds like you as well, then read on...

The author starts in with reviewing how business requirements and the software development cycle can be part of database development. This a great chapter for people like me who would like to learn how different approaches are taken from different IT perspectives in a team environment (business analysts, application developers, and project managers) This chapter gives you a good understanding of how the other side thinks.

The next chapter focuses on the importance of proper indexing and strategies as pertaining to data storage. Because once your databases reach to the multiple gigabits of storage space, you need to very focused on how long each request takes. A few seconds here and there begin to add up and can cause serious issues if not taken into consideration early in your database design. Like me who only deals with small to an occasional medium-size database I never really had to think about this before.

The next chapter focuses on transaction processing in MYSQL which is one of the more difficult concepts for many and I am in the process now of reading it. I really like the author's explanations and examples. Each point is explained thoroughly and in an easy to read manner.

The rest of the book goes into more advanced topics (system architecture, benchmarking and profiling, security, replication and clustering) as well as giving more detail and explanation to topics that may only be briefly covered in other MYSQL books (stored procedures, functions, and views).

If you already know the basics of MYSQL and want to really advance your knowledge with "real-world" scenarios, this is the book for you.

If you've come from the Oracle mainstream like me, you're probably not even aware of the breadth of open source apps and tools that can be used with the database. You may have had an inkling from the porting of Oracle to Linux, and Oracle's adoption of Apache and modules such as mod_perl, but that's only the surface.

When I first spied "Oracle and Open Source" by Andy Duncan and Sean Hull, I was so intrigued that I had to buy it. I couldn't believe that there was enough out there to write a book on. How wrong I was.

The two authors have done an excellent job of collecting information on:

* Programming environments, tools, languages (Python, Perl, Tcl, Tk)
* Database maintenance tools - including Orac, Oddis (Tk);
* Web-based monitoring tools for Oracle (such as Karma, Oracletool) and the network too (Big Brother)
* Plus Open Source Java apps (even the Java isn't open source itself), Gnome/GTK+ and more.

The book's aim is to introduce you to the rich range of technologies rather than being the definitive reference. It provides enough to get the tools installed and to set you on your way. And once you're up and running, the authors list the web pages and books that will take you to the next level. I never knew so much was available, but with the groundswell of support from the Open Source community as evidenced on the Internet and in this excellent book, I'm learning fast.

I find the content exciting and very educational. I am a developer in the corporate enviroenment and mainly use mainstreem software. But this book opens a new world of knowledge and experties. The URL's are up to date and you can learn and explore what ever you like in the book extensively. It is useful stuff and can bring new skills to your CV.

Found this book very useful and a real eye opener for those who like myself believed that all your Oracle goodies coming from Oracle Corp. A set of Open Source tools and applications described in this book is amazing. In particular, DB Prism/Cocoon is something that I jumped in right away. Whether you are DBA, developer or just a plain user of Oracle databases, you will find something that will benefit you/your business. Money well spent.

Oracle for quite some time now has embraced Open Source technology and as a result there are a number of Open Source tools that can be used with Oracle databases. This book takes a look at all of them. Starting off with a brief "history" of how Oracle and Open Source software have combined to build a number of Oracle applications, how Tcl, Perl, and Python have played a part and how to install them, building web-based Oracle apps, how Java, GNOME, and GTK+ also are involved with Oracle software, even a brief mention of how Linux & Oracle work together.

There is a wealth of good open source programs around for use with Oracle and this book gives a detailed explanation of how to install and use all of them to your advantage.

Hardly, and after taking a look at this book you will agree.

This book is perfect for anyone that wants to investigate the use of Open Source tools with their Oracle databases.

Finding out what is available, what is useful, what is available, where to get it and how to install it can take a great deal of time.

There is a lot of useful Open Source software available for use with your Oracle database, and though I am a proponent of Open Source software, I will readily admit that it is not all good.

I've given up in exasperation with more than one Open Source tool that would not compile, promised more than it delivered, or simply did not work.

There is though a large collection of Open Source tools that do work, and work well.

What Andy Duncan and Sean Hull have done is compiled an encyclopedia of Open Source tools that do work, and work with the Oracle database.

This book is much more than just a list of Open Source software. Sean and Andy tell you where to find each application, how to install and configure it, and how to use it.

Need to know the different connection methods for Oracle and JDBC? You'll find it here.

How about using Oracle, Apache and JServ? It's in this book.

I thought myself fairly well versed in what Open Source tools were available for Oracle, that is prior to seeing this book.

Some excellent Oracle specific tools are here that I was not aware of previously. In fairness to me though, I know of at least one not in the book. :)

Oracle & Open Source is a well thought out and well executed guide that belongs on the desk of every Oracle DBA, Architect and developer that wants to get a jump start on using Open Source software with Oracle.

This book combined with Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition, must be available in the library of all the emebedded system developers, based on Libux.
This book, give more information than linux device drivers, another iformations for the new developers, that are starting developing emebedded systems based on Linux.
So buy it.

Without a doubt, this is the best driver book I've ever purchased. In the first few chapters the author walks you through boot, interrupts, builds, installs etc so that you can make the most of his outstanding knowledge of drivers and driver design which fills 3/4 of the book. Even if you don't want to design or build your own driver, the first few chapters alone are worth the cost of the book and the knowledge he imparts about drivers is priceless. If you are a Linux Kernel analyst, you can do no better than purchase this. And as to his writing style.. I've read plenty of dry, boring Linux technical books but this one even has a most outstanding writing style. It was enjoyable to read. I cannot praise this book enough. If you're a newbie Linux Kernel Techie or someone who thinks they already know everything... you cannot go wrong. Buy it, read it and you will learn more about drivers than from any other book, and you'll learn a whole lot more besides.

This detailed guide to writing Linux device drivers is a solid acquisition for collections strong in advanced Linux programming: it's for audiences with a working knowledge of operating systems and C - but not necessarily device driver writing - and brings together all the basic concepts and methods needed to address common programming scenarios. Many driver are discussed in no other book, making Essential Linux Device Drivers a 'must have' for any collection serious about Linux programming applications.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I'd been frustrated by the fragmented and incomplete nature of documentation surrounding linux driver development. This is the book I was looking for, I guess.
I specifically liked:
1. the way the author ties all the pieces together. For example, in the PCMCIA subsystem, the diagrams give you the broader picture architecturally, and the code snipppets give you the minutia you'll need. 2. the fact that it is up-to-date as far as the kernel version is concerned.
3. how it resolved a lot of questions I'd had about the scheduler.
4. the really good handling of USB and the video subsystem.
It is a little light on SMP and portability issues, but overall a very good book.

I've been frustrated by many other Linux kernel and device driver books. The authors often make assumptions about the readers knowledge and gloss over areas that can be quite confusing.

To some extent, that's unavoidable: the Linux kernel is monstrous and very complex, and the hardware that drivers control can also be dark and mysterious territory.

I really appreciated this books approach. It's not that everything is explained in complete detail; that would be impossible. However, the author obviously tries very hard to give an overview, an orientation that will hopefully set your mind in the right direction, before diving into details. Throughout the book he adds "go look at this" suggestions that can help you understand whatever he's dealing with at this point.

I think Chapter 2, which is a high level fly-by of the kernel in general, is an absolute masterpiece. That starts by pulling typical kernel boot messages and explaining what they mean and what's going on in code to produce them. It then goes on to discuss kernel locks, briefly looks at procfs and memory allocation, and closes (as each chapter does) with pointers to where to look in the source for the subjects discussed.

Chapters 3 and 4 flesh out basic concepts more, and then after that the book goes into details, picking both real world and fanciful examples of hardware and giving sample device drivers. Simple devices are presented first, while later chapters get into more complicated hardware, but in each case the same general format is followed: overview of the how and why, sample driver(s), how to most easily debug, and pointers to real kernel sources.

Very well done. I have no complaints - oh, a few minor typos, maybe, but nothing serious.

If I had to get one book for home schooling this would be it. Good practical reviews, humor and a friendly warmth. I have read it from front to back more than once.

This review pertains to the third edition, published in 2000.

At almost 500 pages with its large page size, this book has a lot of information. This is a combination/collection of essays by two homeschooling parents (one now deceased, sadly). The book and product reviews are interspersed amongst essays and stories about their homeschooling experiences and philosophies. There are reviews of books, audio tapes, kits, etc. There are lists of magazines, catalogs, and other publications such as free materials available mostly from government agencies. It is partly a catalog since many of the items may be purchased directly from the authors who are also the publishers and also their own mail order catalog business.

What I enjoyed first was the essays and stories of how they homeschooled and why, and how their philosophies sometimes changed over time. Some of the reviews are lengthy and tell how they used that product and how much their children liked it and why. The reviews I like the most are the longer ones in which pros and cons are both mentioned. The reviews I liked least were the short one sentence summaries that really didn't contain any personal opinion. Overall, the reviews are positive in nature so it can be hard to pick out which book may appeal to me. Since so many items are reviewed I do understand that space is limited and the author has a limit on not wanting to include the reviews that are only negative in nature (although I'd find that equally helpful and it may save me money). The book has a tone of "if you don't have anything nice to say the don't say anything". I also wish there was a bit more commentary such as "this book is strong in this area while the next book is strong in this different area". One example is for different books for preschoolers on topics of shapes, colors, counting, etc. There was some overlap in areas and then the review didn't tell enough for me to decide which of the featured items I would prefer.

Some other negatives: I found it hard to pick out the age ranges for the books; topics are mostly by major subject such as science, reading, etc. There are no headers or footers to tell what category you are "in" when the pages are open. Kits are mixed with books, etc. in some cases which can get confusing. Margins are very narrow and don't allow much room for making notations such as which books I decided to buy. Sometimes it is hard to tell where one item ends and the next begins. Sometimes the organization is confusing such as an entry for a website with good homeschooling information mixed in with book reviews (without some kind of sidebar). The copyright free illustrations can get annoying and sometimes make the book seem overly cluttered.

As the mother of a three year old and a baby, I found this book severely lacking in book reviews for babies and preschoolers. (Despite the authors claiming this book begins with birth-aged materials.) Many books that I have found very helpful for parenting, general reading books, and preschool aged activity books were just missing.

Areas I found of most interest were the reviews of books on history and how to teach reading. These were two areas that I was worried about dealing with as a homeschooling mother. I was glad for the guidance toward the useful books.

Despite my complaints the book has been very helpful and inspiring for me. I have a long wish list made now! Going through the book more than once, I now value this as more of a reference tool. It is worth every penny and I highly recommend it to all homeschoolers especially if you compare the cost of this book to books you may have bought that ended up being useless. The fact that this is self-published by a homeschooling mother is incredible and to be commended.

Many times there were great reviews of books when I have been unable to find reviews online.

I am recommending this to all my homeschooling friends. Would also make a great reference book for teachers and public libraries.

This book would be worth 5 stars for the product reviews. But there is so much more! This "whole earth catalog" of homeschooling is a gentle reminder that homeschooling can be seen as a lifestyle, or even as a worldview, and that education is just one small part of the larger process of building a family and living in the world.

Jean has been there! Even the product reviews are written from the point of view of life experience, and the essays, sometimes pithy, sometimes humorous, sometimes moving, and sometimes all three at once, cover everything from birth to death, an examination of a life well-lived.

This has long been my favorite homeschooling book, and the Third Edition just makes it even better. When they pick up this book, users of packaged learning approaches such as The Well-Trained Mind will immediately discover how much they have been missing!

The Home School Source Book, 3rd Edition, By Jean and Donn Reed

How to describe this one-of-a-kind book? Imagine touring a huge educational supply or book store (from your favorite chair) with a knowledgeable guide trailing at your elbow, a guide whose sole purpose is to help you find materials that work for you. That is how I experience this book every time I open it. I can practically hear Jean or Donn whispering in my ear.

Whether you are a homeschooling parent putting together your curriculum or a parent seeking to supplement a classroom education, this book will ease your journey and open your eyes.

The Home School Source Book is so much more than a resource book --- it is an educational odyssey, a how-to, a philosophy, as well as a resource and catalog, all rolled into one. Many, many materials are thoughtfully reviewed and practical suggestions for using those materials are included. Comments and essays, liberally sprinkled throughout the subject resources, cover a tremendous scope of "life subjects."

What I like best, I think, is that the Reeds assume that readers are thinking people who do not need to be told what to do. So instead of lectures, we are treated to friendly conversations and gentle debates over homeschooling issues of importance to the Reed family, materials they have used, materials others have found useful, all seasoned with surprising facts and interesting tidbits of knowledge. You may not agree with the Reeds, but you will be moved to think about the ideas they present. In the end, that is what homeschooling is all about, isn't it?

I bought this book 5 years ago, and it proved to be one of the best resource books I have ever seen for home schoolers. Not only does it fill every possible need a home schooler could have, but Mr. Reed's thoughts on home schooling and its benefits are found throughout the book, and are quite enjoyable and informative to read. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting vast information, sources and supplies for home schooling.

This was an excellent book; well researched, well written, and well organized. This book provided a remarkable contrast to "The Cathedral and the Baazar", which, while interesting, was generally poor in its organization and far too biased to take seriously. Although the author is obviously biased towards open sourse, this is the most objective book I've read coming from the open source community. Rosenberg often objectively points out the challenges the open source debate will face legally and philisophically in the near future. This is a great reference book for anyone interested in the open source debate.

Open Source: The Unathorized White Papers is a real contrast to the other more well known book I've read on the subject, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. While Cathedral and Bazaar reads like a series of unorganized USENET posts and random musings, Open Source is very well organized, and professionally written and edited. It contains up to date and accurate information about a range of topics relating to open source, including history, examples of businesses, and licensing.

The book's coverage of licensing is easily the most complete source for understanding a very complex subject. There are so many misconceptions of what licensing means in terms of software that the book is a must read if you either run a software company or are considering investing in one.

The only issue I have with the book is its description of the Java programming language as not having "a community". Being on the board of directors for the local Java User's Group I naturally take issue with that characterization, but for the sake of brevity, as well as sticking to the topic at hand, I will refrain from bringing out the voluminous amount of evidence to the contrary. :-)

For disclosure, I must admit to having met Mr. Rosenberg in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina. This isn't hard to do, considering he attends meetings of nearly every technical group I can think of, and is an expert on "people" networking.

This book presents an excellant overview of the open source development arena: who is playing, why they are playing, where are they headed, etc. It also provides an excellant grounding in the forces that shaped the movement, as well as the individuals who found themselves leading a movement (when they really thought they were just good programmers).

The book is well written and organized, with interesting side stories that provide a drill-down view of key areas. There is also good discussion of the strategy that is behind the key players in the game today, as well as insights into emerging opportunities.

For anyone who wants a good overview of this revolutionary method of software development, this is it.

Sometimes a home run is little more than a hit causing an increment tick to a stat, but once in a while it's a powerful work of art that changes the game--Donald Rosenberg's book is the latter. It is, by far, the best book on Open Source written to date.

As someone involved with open source strategies at a large corporation in the computer industry, I found Donald's book to be objective, insightful, and current which reflects an intimate knowledge of someone on the inside.

The level-headedness of this book makes it an essential read for anyone trying to understand the counter-intuitive nature of open source or protect themselves from the FUD, emotions, and convoluted conversations that plague Open Source.

This book is a compilation of essays on open source from the author. He covers the origins and history, as well as a responsible coverage of the licensing models. While there is an over emphasis of Linux, it does talk about various business models that can be used in the open source context. It also includes the text of some of the major open source licenses.

The definitely guide to Derby. This offers much more explanation and information than the online documentation provided by Apache. But what do you expect... it comes from the minds at IBM themselves.

However, unlike most of IBM's publications and documentation, this is actually readable and informative. You don't have to wade through a series of unknowns and missing pieces of the puzzle in order to figure out what IBM was trying to actually get at.

This will not only help you define and work with Apache Derby, but also make your applications lighter, faster and easier to deploy.

Apache Derby is a very promising package that is being freely offered, as both source code and binaries. This book is an aggressive promotion of its virtues. The authors stress many things about Derby, or its IBM sidekick, Cloudscape.

Derby addresses a persistent need amongst many Java programmers for an easy to use SQL database. Often, a Java programmer has only cursory expertise in coding for a full database like IBM's DB2 or Oracle. Best usage of these often requires you to be a DBA.

By contrast, Derby comes as a Java JAR file, and can be plonked into your programming environment just as any other JAR file. The book explains in depth how to then interact with Derby, at the level of your Java source code. You can see that you get a pretty powerful engine. Including features like stored procedures and user defined functions, that let you optimise for speed.

Speaking of speed, that is perhaps the biggest possible drawback of Derby. It is run as Java bytecode in a jvm, which is not quite as fast as a package compiled into native binaries. The book seems to deprecate this aspect, but you should be aware of it.

You might find Derby useful enough that you don't have to migrate to a full database like DB2. The book stresses that the code you write to interface with Derby will also do for DB2. There is a potential problem here for IBM, if it loses DB2 business to Derby. But maybe it feels that if it never promoted Derby, then sooner or later, an equivalent product would come along.

Obviously, to use Derby, you still need to know basic SQL statements. And some understanding of how to develop related tables to hold your data. The text is not meant to teach you these skills.

The first chapter also makes various cogent points about the advantages of using Derby. With sometimes unintentional hilarity. A passage says the intent is not to besmirch Microsoft. But despite this pious protestation, it proceeds immediately to do just that. By opining that Microsoft's SQL Server has a 5 year lag between upgrades - Server 2000 and Server 2005. While Derby has source code available, and a much faster cycle for introducing new capabilities.

Apache Derby is the only open source, pure Java RDBMS database and APACHE DERBY-OFF TO THE RACES comes from IBM's own database experts and tells how to make the most of Derby and its commercial counterpart IBM Cloudscape. Learn how to support development efforts, install Derby on both Windows and Linux systems, how to understand how programming languages interact with them, and build sample applications step-by-step: everything is here to learn the fundamentals and troubleshoot virtually any problem.

If you've ever been curious about using or integrating Apache Derby (or IBM Cloudscape) into your project, here's the book you'll need... Apache Derby - Off to the Races by Paul C. Zikopoulos, Dan Scott, and George Baklarz. Very well done...

Contents: On Your Marks... Get Set... Go!!! - An Introduction to the Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape Community; Deployment Options for Apache Derby Databases; Apache Derby Databases; Installing Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape on Windows; Installing Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape on Linux; Managing an Apache Derby Database; Security; SQL; Developing Apache Derby Applications with JDBC; Developing Apache Derby Applications with Perl, PHP, Python, and ODBC; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in JDBC; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in Windows; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in PHP; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in Perl; "Your Momma Loves Drama" In Python; Web Site Contents; Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape Resources; Troubleshooting Hints and Tips; Index

Derby is one of those technologies that has remained "under the radar" for awhile. The Cloudscape database from IBM was released to the open source community under the name Derby, and basically those two packages are the same core code. Cloudscape has a few more add-ons and support from IBM, but if you learn one you learn them both. The authors do a very good job here in helping the reader to understand the architecture and benefits of having a small-footprint embedded relational database system in your application. The start of the book lays the groundwork very well, and establishes the "why" of Derby. But rather than remaining a high-level overview, they dive into the core of the software, showing how to install it, work with it, and how to secure your data. The real value comes when they take a sample ticket application ("Your Momma Loves Drama") and shows how Derby can be integrated the application in a number of different languages. Even if you don't necessarily know Perl, PHP, or Python, you should be able to follow along enough to extrapolate how the concepts can be applied to your platform of choice. After reviewing this book, I've got some ideas on how I'd like to play around with this...

A very solid addition to your programming bookshelf. Between this book and the online resources, you should have everything you need to master the Derby/Cloudscape software.

What is linux good for? That is the question that the authors of this book set about explaining. They tell you all of the wonderful things that you can make linux do with a little bit of effort. It could use a new edition but otherwise a very good read.

PS A station wagon packed with hard drives has more bandwidth in most instances than dsl or cable internet.

I've been curious about Linux for some time now. But, the only books that I could find, are all on installing, administering, configuring. Every one rehashing what the other said. None of them sold me on diving in.

When I discovered this book, I was apprehensive, but I went for it and purchased it. All I have to say is WOW! I never realised how flexible Linux is, or how much you could do.

I was thouroughly impressed on the variety of this book. I've finally been inspired to dive right in to Linux.

Are you a new Linux user, and want to learn more?

Are you an experienced Linux user, but are wondering what other interesting things you can do?

This book will teach you fun things. This book will teach you useful things. This book takes you on a tour you can't help but enjoy. At the end of the day, you'll find yourself not only entertained, but more knowledgeable about what you can do with Linux. It's probably more than you think!

This book helped me discover new interests and new possibilities, all in easy to read and entertaining prose. With that in mind, I'm giving this book the highest rating possible.

Technically, Linux is the name for the operating system kernel at the heart of "Linux" distributions such as RedHat and Debian. When most people "use" Linux, they are in fact using the shell, the web server, or any other of the zillions of open source programs that (1) are available for, (2) are distributed with, or (3) can run atop the Linux kernel.

It used to be that there were only a few things you could do with a Linux box (namely run a Unix box as a web server) but the open source community has come a long way in providing (1) applications and (2) hardware support, so that you can now do a lot of things w/ your Linux box that used to only be doable on a Windoze box.

Schwarz et al have put together a smorgasbord of things you can do with your Linux box. These projects range from things you would tend to do on a Unix box (eg IP Masquerade, SSH, system security, even a chapter on writing Apache modules!) to stuff you would expect to need to do on a Windoze box (eg burning CDRs, syncing with Palm devices, and audio/MIDI/image/video processing).

The level of detail in the chapters (as well as the required level of Linux familiarity on the part of the reader) varies considerably -- a hazard of multiple authors and the breadth of the topics covered -- but each chapter starts off with a "Difficult-o-Meter" which more or less accurately states the level of Linux proficiency required.

That said, there are some real gems to be found in this book. There are some pretty hefty howto-like treatments in this book of topics such as system security, "undernets" (collaborative web sites), and setting up a web/IMAP/mail server.

There's a chapter on "Tools You Should Know", which lists the tools a typical Unix hacker should know: regular expressions, vi, dd, sed, diff, etc. Like some other parts of the book, this chapter doesn't give you a lot of information on these individual tools, but it brings them to your attention, so you at least know what to look for.

This book by itself won't turn a newbie into a Linux ninja after one reading, but it is a good overview of many different things that can be done with open source tools on a Linux box. I would highly encourage the prospective reader to take a look at the Table of Contents of this book. If you see a topic you're interested in, then this is a worthwhile book to buy. (I suspect that most folks running Linux at home at a beginner to intermediate level will find several bits of interest in this book.)

Using open source is profoundly exciting to everyone involved in the process. That's one of its problems. Authors Dan Woods and Gautam Guliani have done an outstanding job of writing the perfect guide that will make open source work for you.

Woods and Guliani begin by explaining the origins, evolution and life cycle of open source; and, evaluating its potential benefits for the enterprise. Next, the authors show you how to determine the quality of an open source project; and, whether it is right for your company. Then, they present an analysis of the knowledge required to effectively implement open source; and, discuss how an enterprise can build skills from within. Woods and Guliani continue by showing you how to calculate the return on investment of open source; and, make a compelling case to management. In addition, the authors next explore a low-risk plan for adopting and applying open source. They also examine where to find help in implementing open source projects; and, how to evaluate competing offers. The authors next show you how to close the productization gap; and, expand the opportunities for open source deployment. Next, the authors discuss the legal underpinnings of open source licensing, with evaluations of GPL, Copyleft, LGPL, BSD and others. Woods and Guliani continue by examining FUD, the legal challenges being mounted against open source, and how an enterprise can manage the risks involved. Finally, they cover build versus buy, the middle road less taken, and how using open source will change your IT department for the better.

With the preceding in mind, the authors have done an excellent job of designing an open source book that shows you how to get it right through prudence, patience, and a methodical search for risks and ways to remedy them. At the end of the day, open source should play some role in most IT departments, including yours.

"Open Source for the Enterprise" is a well thought out and methodical look into the realities of open source software use. This is a practical guide for navigating its introduction into an organization and the approaches for properly evaluating its fit and governance. The authors provide a set of strategies and artifacts for helping to establish and communicate whether or not open source software would be effective within an organization. Topics such as comparing and assuming risk; evaluating the costs and return; adoption and governance; indemnification and licensing are all covered very well. The last quarter of the book provides a topical look at common open source platforms for desktop solutions, email, collaboration, content management, and application development. While the coverage presented is not inclusive of the entire offerings available, the preeminent projects for each category are evaluated.

I enjoyed this book. I reveled when reading the authors' analogy of an architect approaching management about starting an open source software initiative to that of a child asking a parent for a puppy. This was presented during the subject of "Preventing an Open Source Nightmare". This section threw some reality into my fervor for evangelizing open source within my own company and drove home the authors' point that reckless enthusiasm is not the way. I believe that anyone considering the use of open source platforms, tools, or end-user applications within their organization would be well-served by reading this text cover-to-cover.

This is an excellent introduction to managing and developing open source project, as well as for judging the health of projects you would like to use in the enterprise. The text is well written and engaging. There is management level material here on risk analysis, project management and methods for evaluating open source projects.

All too often, the discussion about using open source software in an organization takes on an emotional or political tone. And since most information about open source decisions tends to feed that emotion, it's nice to find a book that tries to look at the subject from a rational perspective. This book does a very good job of that... Open Source For The Enterprise by Dan Woods and Gautam Guliani.

Contents: The Nature of Open Source; Measuring the Maturity of Open Source; The Open Source Skill Set; Making the ROI Case; Designing an Open Source Strategy; Support Models for Open Source; Making Open Source Projects Easy to Adopt; A Comparison of Open Source Licenses; Open Source Under Attack; Open Source Empowerment; The Open Source Platform; End-User Computing and the Desktop; Open Source and Email; Groupware, Portals, and Collaboration; Web Publishing and Content Management; Application Development; Index

As I stated above, open source technology books (covering the topic as a whole, not individual projects) tend to be "rah-rah" in nature, pitting the plucky open source alternatives against the big evil proprietary software companies. While I may just happen to lean in that direction, it's not very helpful if you're trying to make a solid business case for adopting a corporate open source strategy. You need to concentrate on risks, financial return on investment, support issues, and all the other things that apply to *any* software used in your organization. Woods and Guliani do a very good job in aiming for, and hitting, that target. While they believe in the promise of open source, they give the reader some solid tools to judge whether a particular open source alternative is worthy to explore. For instance, some open source projects take off and soar, while others languish with no activity after a few months. By checking release levels, discussion boards, documentation quality, etc., you can mitigate the risk of committing to a project that doesn't continue to grow. Conversely, if you find a project that addresses a need but may not be overly active, they provide guidance on what type of skill base you'll need to have or acquire to take the development in house.

Open Source For The Enterprise is one of those books that you should see in a number of organizations, helping management and techies come together to make rational business decisions that benefit the company and not someone's resume. Very good material...

This book, by Thompson Learning, is an excellent book in that it not only goes into the code aspect of game creation using QT and a C++ compiler, but gives some insight into what it takes to design a particular game program solution.

However, even though it does not take a whole lot of programming experience to program a game, one does need to have at least a working knowledge of form creation using (QT or a Visual program language) and some knowledge of a C++ compiler.

Remember, to show a form it must be called by code which includes at least one (Show form) code block.

I would say the programming level needed to use this book effectively is at least advanced beginning. And I believe some experience in the Linux version of QT and the Linux GNU C++ compliler would be very helpful.

See this book as a general introduction to developing games and open source software, but some definitions are often shallow and/or briefly explained. You'll have to follow its many references to gather the whole knowledge together. Recommended for those with good skills in C++ and class programming but are willing to build some board games for fun. Interestingly, it gives some insight into AI and 3D gfx, but never deep enough for someone to start any serious project. The attached CDROM contains complete projects which does help a lot (but nothing that you can't find in the Web).

Well written, concise, clear -- this is book is the perfect introduction for anyone who wants to code using Qt and KDE as well as for anyone who wants to get into game programming as a hobby.

This book contains everything you need to know to develop game programs on Linux and the KDE desktop, with information on how to make your games portable to Windows, Mac and PDA. It covers a wide range of topics in a very clear fashion - technicalities of various platforms, use of Qt canvas 2D graphics and OpenGL 3D graphics, sound, artificial intelligence, path finding, maths and physics of games and network play, to name just a few. The references to websites and other texts, at the end of each chapter, are alone worth their weight in gold.

If only I had had this book available when I sat down to develop a game 4 years ago. I would have saved about a year of my life, which I spent finding out things the hard way!

In the past I made some works with OSWorkflow and indeed it was really a hard task to collect the documentation and examples on how to use it. Reading this book I found a lot of useful information about different forms of using OSWorkflow.
There are many intresting topics that you can left behind in an enterprise application that use a workflow, an example is event management, and in this book you can found how to make it with OSWorkflow and Esper, and other main topic in this kind of applications is Business Rules, and there is a good coverage of this using JBoss Rules
Integration with Spring, JUnit, Hibernate are other topics that are very important when you use OSWorkflow also are covered in the book.

Been playing around with open source workflow engines for quite some time, Enhydra Shark, JBoss jBPM, etc. At each pass I feel that I'm playing with a black box, guessing at the internal behavior, not understanding the results. I hadn't really considered OSWorkflow because it didn't have the 'press' of the other packages. Then I bought this book and found out how much fun one can really have with a workflow engine. All of the components are pluggable, as this book points out repeatedly, if you don't like the behavior of a component, change it -- and here's how. Need a different persistent store, change it, customize it. This is truly a programmer's workflow engine and this book will appeal to programmers.

This book also shows how, with examples, to integrate JBoss Rules (aka DROOLS), Quartz scheduling, and Esper complex event processing.

The only downside which I found was not with the book, but with the OSWorkflow distribution, the Hibernate support is old in v2.8.0. At first I was disappointed but with the help of this book, I just wrote my own Hibernate 3 support in a matter of a few hours and I know the package much more intimately as result. I went on to customize and *optimize* this for my project.

OSWorkflow is a great workflow engine, let's hope this book give the kick-start which it needs to be even better.

"OSWorkflow", by Adrian Naya Lazo, published by in August 2007, is for experienced Java developers and system architects wanting to develop complex Java applications that make use of the OSWorkflow engine. Since the OSWorkflow engine is not plug-and-play, but requires low-level configuration, it is not intended for non-technical end users. Despite that, the book doesn't assume prior knowledge of business process management.

The book is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1, "BPM and Workflow Basics" introduces workflow engines, different types of business process management systems, traceability, and auditing. At the end of this chapter you will have a high level understanding of what Business Process Manaegement technology entails. In Chapter 2, "Introduction and Basics", you enter the Hello World scenario. For this kind of chapter, there is a lot of information here. It might have been better to have a very short "Hello World" chapter, with just the simplest scenario, because this covers quite a lot. Still, the chapter is very good in laying the basis for the rest of the book. You are shown where to get the OSWorkflow engine on-line, how to navigate a sample user interface, you begin to understand the basics of OSWorkflow, and then look at some important XML definitions and an example workflow, steps, actions, results, splits, and joins. Interestingly, you are shown how to send an e-mail automatically, by configuring an XML file. Then you are shown an alternative approach, not via XML, but using a visual designer. (This part could have been the first "Hello World" chapter, with the earlier XML tags being in a follow up chapter.)

Chapter 3 tells you about adding code to definitions created in the previous chapter. Because chapter 2 covered so much, chapter 3 already touches on advanced topics, such as transient data, function providers, registers, conditions, and BeanShell scripting. Tips such as those relating to Auto and Finish Actions are also outlined here. "Using OSWorkflow in your Application" is the title of chapter 4. Here OSWorkflow APIs are discussed, allowing you to embed OSWorkflow within an application. In addition, persistence, unit testing, Spring integration, and security are discussed in some detail. Chapter 5 tells you about integrating business rules with JBoss Rules. You are shown how the Rules engine works, as well as its connection with the Drools open-source engine. Usefully, it defines its terms as it goes along, even "What is JBoss Rules?" The integration with OSWorkflow rules is well described and the examples given are relevant.

The next chapters dig deeper into the integration between OSWorkflow and other software. For example, in chapter 6 you are taught about "Scheduling with Quartz". Quartz, a time scheduler, can integrate with OSWorkflow, so that you can sendin events and actions. The location and installation of Quartz is mentioned and briefly introduced, prior to an interesting chapter culminating in a customer support scenario, as well as a claims processing scenario. Both are pretty complex, well described, and really bring the concepts discussed into focus. Further advanced topics are discussed in chapter 7, in particular, Event Stream Processing and Complex Event Processing. The Esper CEP engine is tackled in detail throughout the chapter, and then coupled with the OSWorkflow engine. Examples are given, again, including an interesting one involving event-based mail alerts via patterns and listeners, also using the EQL (Esper Query Language), which is an interesting diversion in this chapter. Finally, chapter 8 outlines how to integrate with Dashboards provided by Pentaho. The Pentaho charting capabilities are discussed and then applied to the OSWorkflow instance database for creating a dashboard relevant to OSWorkflow monitoring and analysis.

In general, the book delivers what it promises. It provides a lot of explanations and diagrams and actual code snippets. It starts from the beginning, referring to on-line resources and continues from there, step by step, with a lot of real life scenarios. However, it would have been good to have seen how OSWorkflow compares with alternatives. Similarly, it is not clear why Quartz and Pentaho, for example, were chosen as endpoints for integration, rather than one of their competitors. The book is clear and well written with many examples. Despite the complexity of the subject and the broad range of topics covered, it was an enjoyable read.

I can't believe it's been over 8 years since I first went from "open source user" to "open source developer", but it was all the way back in 1999 when I released OSWorkflow, which was based on my work at Cisco Systems developing a document management system, to the open source world. It was designed to be a simple, easy-to-use workflow system based on the principles of the "finite state machine".

While it was considered lower level than other competing business process solutions, it actually got quite a bit of traction due to it's simplicity and the fact that instead of using big "businessy" terms that other offerings used to describe themselves, it never hid what it was: a core finite state machine engine designed to make it easy to manage the workflow of many entities (people, issues, documents, etc).

Since then, OSWorkflow has been a pretty good success: a GUI for creating workflows was built, the development team evolved beyond just me (in fact, I haven't been involved in the project directly for 5+ years), became the core of the super-popular JIRA issue tracker, and now it has it's own book.

As the original creator of OSWorkflow, I was given a copy of the book and read through it the other day. In addition to the tremendous pride at seeing the contents in print, I was actually surprised to learn many new things about OSWorkflow. The book covers topics such as complex branching, rules engine integration, Spring integration (Spring didn't exist back when I used OSWorkflow!), and even tie in to those complex business process solutions I never quite "got".

Overall, the book is an excellent guide to OSWorkflow and building workflow systems in Java in general.