Press Release
January 29, 1999
Voices from the Open Source Revolution
SEBASTOPOL, CA -- The hurricane force of the Open Source movement
has taken many industry leaders by surprise. Until recently, Open
Source software quietly fueled the Internet. But within the past
year, Open Source has grabbed attention of the industry with a
flurry of headlines. Netscape has opened the source code to Mozilla;
IBM supports Apache; major database vendors have ported their products
to Linux; Microsoft leaks the Halloween document. Suddenly, Open
Source is recognized as a viable mainstream alternative to commercial
software.
In
Open
Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, leaders of
Open Source come together in print for the first time to discuss a new
vision of the software industry they have created. The essays in this
volume offer insight into how the Open Source movement works, why
it succeeds, and where it is going.
For programmers who have labored on Open Source projects, Open Sources
is the new gospel: a powerful vision from the movement's spiritual
leaders. For businesses integrating Open Source software into their
enterprise, Open Sources reveals the mysteries of how open development
builds better software, and how businesses can leverage freely
available software for a competitive business advantage.
The contributors here have been the leaders in the Open Source arena:
- Brian Behlendorf (Apache)
- Kirk McKusick (Berkeley Unix)
- Tim O'Reilly (Publisher, O'Reilly & Associates)
- Bruce Perens (Debian Project, Open Source Initiative)
- Tom Paquin and Jim Hamerly (mozilla.org, Netscape)
- Eric Raymond (Open Source Initiative)
- Richard Stallman (GNU, Free Software Foundation, Emacs)
- Michael Tiemann (Cygnus Solutions)
- Linus Torvalds (Linux)
- Paul Vixie (Bind)
- Larry Wall (Perl)
- Bob Young (Red Hat)
This book explains why the majority of the Internet's servers use Open
Source technologies for everything from the operating system to Web
serving and email. Key technology products developed with Open Source
Software have overtaken and surpassed the commercial efforts of
billion dollar companies like Microsoft and IBM to dominate software
markets. Learn the inside story of what led Netscape to decide to
release its source code using the Open Source mode. Learn how
Cygnus Solutions builds the world's best compilers by sharing the
source code. Learn why venture capitalists are eagerly watching Red
Hat Software, a company that gives its key product -- Linux -- away.
For the first time in print, this book presents the story of the Open
Source phenomenon told by the people who created this movement.
"Linux today has millions of users, thousands of developers, and a
growing market. It is used in embedded systems; it is used to control
robotic devices; it has flown on the space shuttle. I'd like to say that
I knew this would happen, that its all part of the plan for world
domination. But honestly this has all taken me by surprise. I was much
more aware of the transition from one to one hundred users than the
transition from one hundred to one million users."
-Linus Torvald, "The Linux Edge" in OpenSources; Voices from the Open
Source Revolution.
"Open-source software has already created a fork in the road. Just as
the early microcomputer pioneers (in both hardware and software) set
the stage for today's industry, open-source software has set the stage
for the drama that is just now unfolding, and that will lead to a radical
reshaping of the computer industry landscape over the next five to ten years."
-Tim O'Reilly, "Hardware, Software, and Infoware" in OpenSources;
Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
"We have a fondness for sayings in the Perl community. One of them
is 'There's more than one way to do it.' This is true in Perl. It's also
true of Perl. And it's true of the Open Source community. I won't tell
you everything about how Open Source works; that would be like trying
to explain why English works. But I can say something about Perl, and
where it's going. Here's another saying: 'Three great virtues of
programming are laziness, impatience, and hubris, Great Perl programmers
embrace those virtues. So do Open Source developers. But here I'm
going to talk about some other virtues: diligence, patience, and humility.'
If you think these sound like the opposite, you're right. If you think a
single community can't embrace opposing values, then you should spend
more time with Perl. After all, there's more than one way to do it."
-Larry Wall, in "Diligence, Patience, and Humility" in OpenSources;
Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
"Yoda's philosophy (There is no 'try') sounds neat, but it doesn't work
for me. I have done most of my work while anxious about whether I
could do the job, and unsure that it would be enough to achieve the
goal if I did. But I tried anyway, because there was no one but me
between the enemy and my city, Surprising myself, I have sometimes
succeeded. Sometimes I have failed; some of my cities have fallen.
Then I found another threatened city, and got ready for another battle.
Over time, I've learned to look for threats and put myself between
them and my city, calling on other hackers to come and join me.
Nowadays, I'm often not the only one. It is a relief and a joy when
I see a regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line, and I realize
this city may survive--for now. But the dangers are greater each year,
and now Microsoft has explicitly targeted our community. We can't
take the future of freedom for granted. Don't take it for granted! If
you want to keep your freedom, you must be prepared to defend it."
-Richard Stallman, "The GNU Operating System and the Free Software
Movement" in OpenSources; Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
"Open Source software taps the intrinsic efficiency of the technical
free market, but it does so in an organic and unpredictable way. Open
Source businesses take on the role of Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'
guiding it both to help the overall market and to achieve their
microeconomic goals."
-Michael Tiemann, "Future of Cygnus Solutions." in OpenSources;
Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
###
Open
Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution
Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman & Mark Stone
1st Edition January 1999 (US)
ISBN: 1-56592-582-3, 280 pages , $24.95
About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
Return to: O'Reilly Press Room
|
Recent Press Releases
Press Release Archive »
Resources
Press Contacts
Corporate
Sara Winge
800/998-9938 x7109
Media Relations - North America
Sara Peyton
800/998-9938 x7118
Media Relations - Germany
Corina Pahrmann
+49-221-973160-22
Media Relations - Japan
Kenji Watari
+81-3-3356-5227
Media Relations - United Kingdom
Josette Garcia
+44 (0)1252-721284
Media Relations - Conferences
Maureen Jennings
800/998-9938 x7083
|
