The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

Open source provides the competitive advantage in the Internet Age. According to the August Forrester Report, 56 percent of IT managers interviewed at Global 2,500 companies are already using some type of open source software in their infrastructure and another 6 percent will install it in the next two years. This revolutionary model for collaborative software development is being embraced and studied by many of the biggest players in the high-tech industry, from Sun Microsystems to IBM to Intel.

The Cathedral & the Bazaar is a must for anyone who cares about the future of the computer industry or the dynamics of the information economy. Already, billions of dollars have been made and lost based on the ideas in this book. Its conclusions will be studied, debated, and implemented for years to come.

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Book Detail

Paperback: 241 pages Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (January 15, 2001) Language: English ISBN-10: 0596001088 ISBN-13: 978-0596001087 Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches

This short volume is the text (with some addendum matter) of a famous speech given by the author in the spring of 1997 before the Linux Kongress in Germany. The speech received a standing ovation from the audience. I'll suggest that speech could be meaningfully described as the Gettysberg Address of the Open Source software development movement. Now, more than a decade later, the content of the speech has both historical value and, perhaps more importantly, much to say about the current state of affairs in the world of software development. As we observe the rapidly growing sophistication and worldwide popularity of such open source applications as the Firefox browser and the GNU/Linux operating system, certain questions arise; e.g., how is it that such computer applications, completely free to anyone for the downloading, are "economically" possible in the first place, and how can they be of such superb quality that they are considered by many to be superior to the best products on the market from Microsoft, Apple, and the legions of producers of "proprietary" (= not free) software products? Historically, the author documents important aspects of the philosophy underlying the open source movement, as well as seminal events in its evolution during the 1980's and 1990's. This he does in the context of describing the interplay and conflicts that occurred between the two most famous figures behind that movement: Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU utilities, and Linus Torvalds, godfather of the Linux operating system. Of ongoing value is the discussion of how good software is best created. Raymond makes a strong case for the advantages of the open source approach. In doing so, he helps explain the important, and often misunderstood, distinction between the common conception of open source software being "free" (i.e., available at no cost) and the more important meaning of it being "free" in the sense of "free speech."

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history and development of the open source software movement. If you're not yet informed about the importance of that movement, its philosophy, and the quality of its products, I'll leave you with two thoughts: (1) about 75% of the web servers on the internet are running the Linux operating system and Apache webserver software -- both open source products -- and (2) open source appears to be the only mechanism by which a huge part of the world, that can not afford Apple's overpriced computers or Microsoft's pecuniary operating systems, will be able to boot-strap themselves into the information age.

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