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Open Source Book a Collective Effort

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the smithing-of-words dept.

Hairy1 writes "The New Zealand Open Source Society has begun a project to write a book to put the case for open source use in business and government. There is a need for a book which clearly puts the case for using open source, and provides a clear migration plan. Already five authors and several reviewers have stepped forward to commit time to writing the book. However, other authors and reviewers would be welcome to join the project."

7 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. This should go further by amigaluvr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The best option would be to make this not just a book, but an ebook. preferebly only an ebook

    but not the typical ebook. we should have an open source reader which can be used to create books that are more compatible in content. Use this as a starting point to 'ram the message home'

    Imagine the possibilities. A new large book promoting open source with all reasoning to do so, and have it distributed in an open format so as to demonstrate as well as just preach the positives.

    That is my wish for this project.

    1. Re:This should go further by amigaluvr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      they are not truly open. ASCII is a controlled spec, and html is hinted at by the WWW group, and if you think they're open you have another thing coming.

      Problem there is, they may change it at any time

      Besides, non-open machines, such as Windows and MAC's also use these embedded throughout their OS. ASCII perhaps not so much these days, but certainly HTML

    2. Re:This should go further by denny_d · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was personally hoping to see something more like Wikipedia or a wiki environment of some kind with categories so that those knowledgeable in one area would 'control/edit' the content for that category. Wiki's rock IMHO.

  2. Why not make the open source book "open source" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just put all the chapters on sourceforge under CVS.

    1. Re:Why not make the open source book "open source" by evalhalla · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They're actually planning to put the whole book under an "open" license, even if they're still considering whether they're going to do so during developement or right after pubblication.

      What I do hope is that either they succeed in publishing something soon or they decide to release even the earlier drafts, also because this can be a good way to catch the interest of more people.

      For the CVS part, they're already using it, with their own server (I believe).

  3. Re:A more difficult task.... by mpthompson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nowadays CEOs/CFOs/CTOs are only interested in outsourcing to other companies, that in turn use close source software to keep "trade secrets" proprietary, so they can charge an arm and a leg for it.

    Not entirely true. What you say may apply to large corporations, but I can tell you that there are 10,000's of technical managers at medium to small organizations who are looking for solutions that #1 work, and #2 are cost effective to implement and support. A book that builds a solid business case for open source software can go a long ways to helping technical managers introduce open source software technology into these organizations.

    At my start-up company we use open source software extensively and I credit that decision as one of the reasons we can be considered one of the dot-com survivors rather than roadkill. For us, open source software allows a small team of engineers and IT staff to be in tight control over the software that delivers our services. We have access to every line of source code that runs our systems from the initial boot sequence to complex database operations. In the past I worked on projects that were at the mercy of Microsoft and Sun to deliver bug-free software technology in a timely manner. When you are small you don't have the respect or clout to get these companies to be responsive and your ability to fix things yourself are extremely limited. For instance, I went through a nail biting experience of being 2 weeks from shipping a major software product that was heavily dependent on major bugs in the MS and Sun Java VM being fixed before stability and uptime requirements of the product could be proven. In the end we had to punt and ship the product anyway hoping that it was good enough to meet customer requirements. Since mandating open source software at my new company such experiences are a thing of the past because if necessary we can roll up or sleeves and fix thing ourself. In practice this rarely happens, but it let's me sleep a liitle better at night.

  4. At least one already exists by CAB · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Skåne Sjælland Linux User Group in eastern Denmark already has a similar project.
    Its called "Friheden til..." - "The Freedom to...".

    Currently, it consists of 12 books on different topics. Thats 1541 pages all together.

    Find it here.

    The only drawback for the international audience is that it is written in danish.

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