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I wrote a couple of papers about open source where I tries to oppose "open source mythology" or Raymondism as I called it. I think that open source cannot be understood without understanding Microsoft role as an important (negative) mobilizing force behind open source. It's funny that this way Microsoft with its Midas touch produced yet another bunch of millionaires including Linus Torvalds ;-)
I strongly recommend to read NetSlaves and High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars before reading any open source propaganda books like The Cathedral and Bazaar. See also my OSS page.
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
[an error occurred while processing this directive]The Prince
Machiavelli opens The Prince describing the two principal types of governments: monarchies and republics. His focus in The Prince is on monarchies. The most controversial aspects of Machiavelli's analysis emerge in the middle chapters of his work. In Chapter 15 he proposes to describe the truth about surviving as a monarch, rather than recommending lofty moral ideals. He describes those virtues which, on face value, we think a prince should possess. He concludes that some "virtues" will lead to a prince's destruction, whereas some "vices" allow him to survive. Indeed, the virtues which we commonly praise in people might lead to his downfall. In chapter 16 he notes that we commonly think that it is best for a prince to have a reputation of being generous. However, if his generosity is done in secret, no one will know about it and he will be thought to be greedy. If it is done openly, then he risks going broke to maintain his reputation. He will then extort more money from his subjects and thus be hated. For Machiavelli, it is best for a prince to have a reputation for being stingy. Machiavelli anticipates examples one might give of generous monarchs who have been successful. He concludes that generosity should only be shown to soldiers with goods taken from a pillaged enemy city. In Chapter 17 he argues that it is better for a prince to be severe when punishing people rather than merciful. Severity through death sentences affects only a few, but it deters crimes which affects many. Further, he argues, it is better to be feared than to be loved. However, the prince should avoid being hated, which he can easily accomplish by not confiscating the property of his subjects: "people more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance." In Chapter 18, perhaps the most controversial section of The Prince, Machiavelli argues that the prince should know how to be deceitful when it suits his purpose. When the prince needs to be deceitful, though, he must not appear that way. Indeed he must always exhibit five virtues in particular: mercy, honesty, humaneness, uprightness, and religiousness. In Chapter 19 Machiavelli argues that the prince must avoid doing things which will cause him to be hated. This is accomplished by not confiscating property, and not appearing greedy or wishy-washy. In fact, the best way to avoid being overthrown is to avoid being hated.
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Glyn Moody
Pobody's Nerfect, March 14, 2003
Reviewer: Patrick Nance from Austin, TX United States For those of you who have short attention spans, this book contains easily the most complete, detailed, researched, and clearly expounded history of Linux, the Free Software Foundation, the open source movement, the hacker ethic, and most everything else that has been going on with computer geeks since the 1950s. If you're at all interested by what's happening in the "free as in speech" technology sector, this book is a dramatic must-read. Go and pick it up now.
If you're still with me, however, this book is absolutely plagued by the disease known as "technical writing". It's long been known that those who deal with computers and electronics on a day-to-day (hour-to-hour?) basis are not often the most linguistically inclined individuals. This "urban legend" is manifested predominantly in the work, taking its form through constant usage errors, many spelling errors, excruciatingly awkward prose (at times), and, although this is more of a non-issue considering the subject matter, just a little too much bias in one direction.
Just to show that I'm not making this up, Glyn Moody frequently refers to "X Window", rather than "X Windows" (even though that's technically incorrect), "XFree86", "X11", or the "X Windowing System". Other similar, subtle annoyances occur throughout the book, but make no mistake: they don't obscure Moody's points indecipherably, they just annoy. One of the sentences that forced me to question Moody's bias was from Chapter 11: "If the history of Microsoft shows anything, it is a dogged determination to improve its often inadequate first attempts at writing software, and Internet Explorer is no exception." This sentence, inserted just after describing Microsoft's assertions to the U.S. Department of Justice as "shameless", leaves the reader no choice but to second-guess Moody's intentions.
Reviewer: Donald W. Mitchell (see more about me) froma coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise from Boston
Mr. Schiffrin has used the benefit of 40 years of publishing experience to develop a powerful argument that society is being denied access to important new ideas through books. This is occurring because of changes in ownership (and management philosophies) in the publishing industry, and similar effects in book retailing.Along the way in telling this story, you will read many interesting stories about publishing now-famous authors like Gunnar Myrdal (later winner of the Novel Prize) and Studs Terkel.
The former economic concept of a publisher was to earn an adequate income overall, and to operate as frugally as possible. Editors were paid like academics, and physical plant was modest. Profits above what was absolutely needed could be plowed back into books that presented important ideas, but might not earn their keep, and books that would require time to develop an audience.
Books that challenged the conventional wisdom were often best sellers in this environment. That kind of public opinion shift seldom happens today through books.
Mr. Schiffrin uses his own publishing experiences as a microcosm of these issues. Pantheon, which his father founded, was sold to Random House in 1961, and mr. Schiffrin joined to work in marketing. After Random House was bought by RCA, financial discipline was brought in to require that each book seek to earn a profit from its own activities in the near term. That began a process of trimming and redirecting lists.
Later, Random House was sold again, this time to S.I. Newhouse. Plans were soon afoot to greatly reduce Pantheon, and the staff eventually resigned en masse to protest just as the ax started to fall. Mr. Schiffrin left, also, and began a search for funding to start a new publishing house, The New Press. He was able to launch this independent publisher with the help of several foundation grants and W.W. Norton being willing to distribute the books. Random House, meanwhile, did not grow its profits very much and was sold to Bertelsmann in 1998.
During these intervening years, Newhouse actually lost lots of money seeking to improve profits in book publishing. Enormous losses occurred in unearned advances in seeking blockbusters. Overhead costs soared as salaries, marketing, and expense accounts were expanded enormously.
By seeking ever higher near-term profits, publishers have established a market test for new books that makes it more attractive to publish an offshoot of a new Hollywood movie than a book challenging the political orthodoxy. Books like the former have swelled while the latter have dwindled. Many publishers and imprints now publish in very few categories, with limited types of books in those remaining categories.
The industry has also become very concentrated. Ten publishers accounted for 75 percent of U.S. book sales in 1999. The publishing operations themselves are now small parts of large media conglomerates. Some of these publishing conglomerates seem to use book publishing as a way to curry favor for other parts of their businesses. Rupert Murdoch appeared to have done so in publishing a certain work while not publishing others, in a way that would be most appealing to Chinese politicians while trying to get permission to take Sky Broadcasting into mainland China.
Even university presses are under tighter budgets. This means that about 1 percent of the book publishing resources are available through independent, university, and religious-organization-connected presses to open the doors to unpopular ideas. He argues that this is a challenge to our very concept of a free society. I agree wholeheartedly.
The main countervailing force is the Internet. No one knows how this will play out, but it could change the economics of book publishing to allow independent publishers and self-publishing to flourish. If electronic publishing becomes more mainstream, fewer authors may feel that they need the traditional publishers. Stephen King's now-famous experiment of publishing his novella electronically is described. Time will tell how this will all turn out.
In the meantime, I have a suggestion for all readers. We should each take some sizeable percentage of our reading and dedicate it to reading works in subjects we would normally not consider, authors we do not know already and who are not well-known generally, and from publishers who are not in the top ten. This would encourage a greater diversity of ideas more than anything that publishers can do. I promise to be sure to do this with my reviews from now on to help you follow up on this idea and have successful reading experiences at the same time.
Overcome more stalled thinking through your reading!
Donald Mitchell (donmitch@irresistibleforces.com)
by Richard B. McKenzie
by Stig Hackvan
Paperback - 180 pages (September 2000)
O'Reilly & Associates; ISBN: 1565925602
By Lawrence Lessig
Our Price: $14.40 Paperback (June 2000)
Basic Books; ISBN: 0465039138 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.83 x 7.99 x 5.33
Reviewer: mehrlich (see more about me) fromSomers, NY USA
Rather than add to the volumes that have already been written regarding this important work, I'd note that despite the fact that Lessig thoughtfully covers vexing foundational constitutional issues regarding privacy, sovereignity and property rights etc.. in cyberspace, he does so in a manner that is straighforward, compelling and which inspires further thought and disucssion. In other words it was very readable.I found myself often putting the book down to discuss a point made by the author with friends and colleagues, I'm thinking that's exactly what Lessig intended.
While I may have my differences on several issues, this book is fundamntal reading for those interested in the impact of our emerging cyber-society. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
BOOK REVIEW: Code and Other Laws of CyberspaceConventional wisdom says that the Net is unregulable, and by its very nature is immune from government control. Lessig's book argues that this belief is wrong, and that code, not law, controls what values we protect on the Net. Code creates "architectures of control" and can either create an "intellectual commons," free from restrictive regulation, or a dark place of near perfect control. It's up to us (programmers, lawyers, policymakers, and citizens) to decide which eventuality will transpire.
The driving factor behind a regulable Net? Commerce. Commerce makes possible near-perfect control (regulation) through its requirement of identification and certification. The book is about that change and how we can prevent it.
In "real space" laws regulate through legal code. In cyberspace, for the most part, software code regulates. As the cost of violating our intellectual property and privacy decreases, the effectiveness of laws decreases while code increases. Or as James Boyle said more darkly, "Is freedom inversely related to the efficiency of the available means of surveillance? If so, we have much to fear." Lessig's thesis? On the Net, code is law. Code is a kind of constitution in cyberspace. How we write code determines in large part what values we protect. If cyberspace as we know it is to survive, we need a constraint on government's power to regulate through code.
Open source software provides that constraint by checking arbitrary power (transparent rules, changeable code), and functions as a type of "separation of powers in the American constitutional tradition." The Internet itself is based on open protocols, responsible for its rapid growth and innovation as others can tweak and improve open software. The World Wide Web is a prime example of an open system, with HTML, JavaScript, etc. a "view source" away from improvement.
But in the latter part of the 90's, closed application space code is emerging (Windows 95 bundling, etc.), so the balance between open and closed code is changing. Closed code is regulable (nontransparent), open code is not (transparent). To the extent that code is open, government's power to regulate is diminished. Open source rules.
Lessig acts as a kind of meme cracker, using stories to illustrate his main points about regulability, privacy, IP, and freedom of speech. As lawyers are wont to do, the book raises more questions than answers, but it is thought-provoking. The footnotes alone are worth the price of admission. Highly recommended.
A streaming audio interview with Lawrence Lessig is available.
Stephen Duncombe is the author of Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture and a professor at the Gallatin School of New York University where he teaches the history and politics of media and culture. Duncombe has been a political activist for more than a decade and is currently assembling an anthology of writings on cultural resistance.
by Donald K. Rosenberg Our Price: $17.99
Paperback - 300 pages (July 2000)
IDG Books Worldwide; ISBN: 0764546600
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 89,616
See except from the book here: developerWorks Linux Features - Library - PapersBook Description
Provides the 'inside scoop' on Open Source issues and concepts. Offers unbiased insights into the whys, hows, dos and don'ts of the Open Source development model and movement.Open Source refers to software developed by uncoordinated but collaborating programmers, using freely distributed source code and the communications facilities of the Internet. A field guide approach to providing company managers explaining the nuances of the Open Source industry, how to get involved, how to make money, how to contribute back to the community. Examines the benefits as well as the pitfalls of Open Source software development model and use. Open Source licensing explained and dissected.
Stig Hackvan / Paperback / Published 2000
Our Price: $16.96 ~You Save: $2.99 (15%) (Not Yet Published -- On Order)
Thomas SowellPaperback (February 1999)
Hoover Inst Pr; ISBN: 081799582X ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.70 x 9.02 x 6.06
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 18,532
Avg. Customer Review:
Number of Reviews: 2
by David Brooks
Hardcover - 284 pages (May 2000)
Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 0684853779 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.99 x 8.76 x 5.80
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 118
Popular in: New Jersey (#15) Wayne, PA (#3) . See more
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Number of Reviews: 34Bobos in Paradise is a brilliant, breezy, and often hilarious study of the "cultural consequences of the information age." Large and influential (especially in terms of their buying power), the Bobos have reformed society through culture rather than politics, and Brooks clearly outlines this passing of the high-class torch by analyzing nearly all aspects of life: consumption habits, business and lifestyle choices, entertainment, spirituality, politics, and education. Employing a method he calls "comic sociology," Brooks relies on keen observations, wit, and intelligence rather than statistics and hard theory to make his points. And by copping to his own Bobo status, he comes across as revealing rather than spiteful in his dead-on humor. Take his description of a typical grocery store catering to discriminating Bobos: "The visitor to Fresh Fields is confronted with a big sign that says 'Organic Items today: 130.' This is like a barometer of virtue. If you came in on a day when only 60 items were organic, you'd feel cheated. But when the number hits the three figures, you can walk through the aisles with moral confidence."
Like any self-respecting Bobo, Brooks wears his erudition lightly and comfortably (not unlike, say, an expedition-weight triple-layer Gore-Tex jacket suitable for a Mount Everest assault but more often seen in the gym). But just because he's funny doesn't mean this is not a serious book. On the contrary, it is one of the more insightful works of social commentary in recent memory. His ideas are sharp, his writing crisp, and he even offers pointed suggestions for putting the considerable Bobo political clout to work. And, unlike the classes that spawned them--the hippies and the yuppies--Brooks insists the Bobos are here to stay: "Today the culture war is over, at least in the realm of the affluent. The centuries-old conflict has been reconciled." All the more reason to pay attention. --Shawn Carkonen
A Funny, Silly, but Seriously Flawed and Misguided Book, May 21, 2000
Reviewer: Barron Laycock (Labradorman) (see more about me) from Temple, New Hampshire United States If the merit of a book were to be exclusively rated by virtue of readability and entertainment value, then this book is going to be a well-deserved and predictable best-seller. However, if one reads books s to become a more aware, better informed, and intellectually astute citizen, then this is a trite, superficial, and absolutely worthless tome. Like cotton candy, a sweet experience, but almost absolutely devoid of any substantive nutritional content.
Brooks admits in the opening chapter that he considers his work an exercise in what he refers to as "comic sociology". Well, at least he got the comic part right. Please don't misunderstand me; he is obviously a talented, perceptive, and entertaining writer, and one finds the text quite readable and easy to follow and absorb. The problem here is that his analysis is too far superficial to be worthwhile. He admits, for example, that he is no Max Weber (a famous turn of the century sociologist and social theorist who was an astute and amazingly prescient critic of modern capitalist culture). Perhaps if he had read Professor Weber more closely (or at all?) he might have recognized the dangers of placing too much stress on one aspect of a complex social envionment and then overemphasizing its importance in the overall scheme of that particular cultural milieiu.
This is the theoretical mistake Herr Weber accuses Karl Marx of making with dialetical materialism; mistaking the observable fact of the progressive alienation of workers in 19th century manufacturing factories of being alienated for being the central motive force in history. What Marx didn't recognize, unfortunately, was that all participants in large modern industrial societies are by course of the organization of that society into social institutions ritually expropriated from the means of participation in it. Thus, individuals can express their talents and capabilites only though participation and cooperation with large-scale social institutions (read bureaucracies here).
Moreover, this is exactly what Mr. Brooks does, mistaking some colorful and paradoxical symptoms of the critical breakdown in the integrity and cohesiveness of modern society and its accompanying cultural ethos for a new culture ethos itself. Indeed, his choice of books for reference here is telling, all dated in the unusual and historically atypical period of the the Affluent society of the 1950s. He studiously ignores a plethora of more traditional and more recent and relevant monographs, such as "Technopoly", by Neil Postman, "The Power Elite" by C.Wright Mills, and "The Cult of Information" by Theodore Roszak.
In essence, Brooks seems amazingly ignorant of the fact that with the rise of a number of related cultural phenomena in the last forty to fifty years, the majority of urban and suburban Americans (especially those who are habitually electronically connected to the media) are deeply confused and disoriented in terms of their cultural orientation. In fact, most Americans feel no cultural constraint to be consistent in terms of what they believe in each of the various aspects of their lives, seeing them as completely disconnected and absolutely independent phenomena.
This is, in fact, the end-point of the alienation process predicted by Marx, Weber, and Durkheim long agao, and is often referred to in more recent terms as "individuation", or absolute cultural fragmentation, disintegration and dissipation into irrelevancy. In this manner we can say that these citizens don't have an integrated cultural ethos so much as they have a grab-bag of ideas, opinions, and views that they feel no need to better understand and integrate into anything approaching a coherent and intelligent world -view.
The main culprits in this evolution has been 1) the rise and domination of dissemination of public information by the electronic media, 2) the segregation of Americans by virtue of income and lifestyles, and 3) the progressive vitiation of all integration and meaning in our cultural values with the astounding confusion and disintegration of all our social institutions as a result of the ongoing changes associated with the technological revolution.
Seen in this way, reading this slim and silly volume is like spending an afternoon watching old Sylvester Stallone movies; entertaining but unconsequential in terms of what one learns from the time so spent. The real danger with watching such movies, of course, is that one may begin to believe that Sly's problem-solving approach as depicted in Rambo is an accurate model for how to conduct one's own life. Here the danger is that too many gullible bozos will read all about bobos and believe it is an accurate depiction of the cutting edge of America's upper class.
Shake off the demons, friend, and pass this one by. This book is, in my opinion, silly and specious nonsense written by someone so insulated in his experience and so lacking in socio-historical perspective that he has little or no idea of what he is talking about. No doubt, however that this book will become a smash best-seller and be the talk of the nation for the next several months. I expect to see Mr. Brooks on Oprah any day now. But then again, as our old amigo Arlo Guthrie would say, "That's America". Go figure!
Apt, entertaining, but not quite on target , July 26, 2000
Reviewer: Michael K. McKeon (see more about me) fromSeattle, WA USA
This work by Brooks's is hot because it is timely and depicts a self conscious group which enjoys being characterized, provided that it is being laughed with and not at. However, while Brooks describes significant, and conspicious, cohorts of the meritocracy his definitions are somewhat off the mark.It is inappropriate to depict this element as bourgeois bohemians; Brooks describes a decidedly bourgeois group of people. What seems to elude him (or perhaps is a part of his denial as a group member) is that anything bohemian in this life style is clearly an affection. This group of the affluent, highly educated assumes bohemian affections to demonstrate their extensive education and experience -- things attributable to affluence and bourgeois application. Their interest in developing cultures reflected in dress, diet, and material acquisitions is not indicative of some adoption of bohemian interests and mores; it is a means of indicating the breath of their cultural knowledge, and is often a pretext for demonstrating how well traveled they are. This is proven by the group's separation from anything untidy, unpredictable, or unpleasant inherent in peasant or working class culture. Occasionally they "slum" because it is chic. This isn't new, for example, many WASPs were devotees of the Harlem Renaissance.
Brooks also asserts, incorrectly, that the WASP upper crust has been displaced by a new, affluent, highly educated, multicultural meritocracy. This is hardly the case; the WASP upper crust has proved adaptable and is quite secure. It only surrendered that for which it has deemed not worth fighting. Brooks assumes that because WASPs are no longer the conspicuously dominant group in many managerial roles that they are in decline. What eludes Brooks is that a low profile and understatement are integral parts of WASP culture. As technology has increased the spotlight on most upper income careers traditional WASPs have sought the shadows. That the WASP role in American society remains secure is reflected by the aping by non-WASPs of many characteristics of white bread WASP culture (albeit, fortunately not the diet). This is reflected by their striving to attend citadels of WASP education -- prep schools and Ivy and little Ivy colleges and universities, as well marketing of Ralph Lauren, the resurgence of Brooks Brothers, and ironically everything sold by Renovation Hardware. "Newly" popular recreational pursuits he describes such as fly fishing, hiking, and mountain biking have always been elements of WASP leisure. The WASPs remain, their institutions are secure (if now accepting parvenue revenue), they are still proportionately overrepresented in most professions governing society, and entrance to their enclaves still remains elusive to those who are not members of their tribe.
The author's descriptions also seem to attempt to define this group as the new upper class. Instead, what he describes is the upper middle class in America, still a small percentage, however, of the total population. He also seems to view his own experiences as reflective of the entire meritocracy he attempts to describe, which is probably inaccurate. Wayne, Pennsylvania is hardly reflective of all highly educated, enlightened, upper income communities in the nation (at least one hopes). In conclusion, it is interesting that Brooks attempts to draw such a distinction between "yuppies" and his "bohos"; there seems to be no difference. Regardless, both are what for centuries have been called the nouveau riche, albeit a consistently well educated segment.
by Randall E. Stross Hardcover - 325 pages (May 23, 2000)
Crown Pub; ISBN: 0812930959 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.22 x 9.57 x 6.52
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 66
Avg. Customer Review: ****
Benchmark Capital is a highly successful albeit unusual venture firm. Most venture firms are hierarchies of partners, associates, and others in the pecking order, much like law firms and other professional service partnerships. Associates at venture firms, often MBAs fresh out of business school, are the gofers who pay their dues for a mere $150,000 a year while trying to make partner. Partners share in the loot the firm makes from a successful investment. Bigger firms have a hierarchy among partners as well: they can be junior, senior, or name, e.g., John Hummer at Hummer Winblad.
But Benchmark doesn't have a traditional structure. It's a firm of five equal partners (six by the time the book comes to an end and 10 at this writing), no associates, and some clerical staff. They make democratic decisions: when one partner brings in a proposal to fund a business, they vote on it together. Votes are from one to 10, and no one is allowed to vote five.
Benchmark's partners are physically similar -- they're all well over six feet tall and athletic -- but their backgrounds are diverse. Three of the five had been venture guys (they don't call themselves VCs) elsewhere before joining Benchmark. Dave Beirne made his name as a headhunter who placed top executives at companies such as
Netscape, Microsoft, and Excite@Home. Because a big part of a venture capitalist's job is helping entrepreneurs find talent to build out their management teams, Beirne's was a fitting background. Kevin Harvey had been an entrepreneur who created a database software company and sold it to Lotus. The others -- Bob Kagle, Andy Rachleff, Bruce Dunlevie, and Bill Gurley -- came to Benchmark from other venture firms. EBoys tells stories about Benchmark, as it got involved with various companies. During the two years in which Stross observed the firm, Benchmark helped fund over 70 businesses. Stross chose to concentrate on the big names mentioned above and some lesser-known
companies to which unusual things happened. He combines actual dialog from Benchmark's partnership meetings with narratives about its portfolio companies and anecdotes about the firm's executives. The book is intelligently organized into chapters that read like installments in a long-running serial, in which Stross returns periodically to stories in progress (such as the rise of eBay) Other chapters stress a particular theme such as building successful management teams or going public.
...EBoys is also disappointingly short of the kind of analysis from Stross that made his The Microsoft Way an interesting read. In that book, Stross used his background as a historian to show precedents for monopolistic megawealth creation a la Bill Gates. EBoys includes very little such analysis, apart from a couple of pages of references to Alexis de Tocqueville and similar erudition.Maybe someone else will write an in-depth account of the business, filling in some of the substance behind the sizzle. Or maybe the venture business is just that shallow -- as shallow as the analysis that leads regular investors to bid Web stock prices up as high as they were before the recent crash. If that's true, the implications are pretty terrible to contemplate.
Bill Lessard, Steve Baldwin / Hardcover / Published 1999 Our Price: $13.97 ~You Save: $5.98 (30%) Average Customer Review:
Authors Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin neatly summarize the operating principle behind NetSlaves: "People are nuts, no matter what profession they're in, but people forced to work like dogs with the carrot stick of stock options and 'untold' wealth dangling under their noses are especially nuts." Far from the glamorous world painted by the few Internet winners, the authors contend, the business of technology is largely strapped to the four million or so backs of carpal-tunnel-prone freelancers and real-life Dilberts. To illustrate their point, they provide a guide to the new media caste system, which converts standard industry roles into a hierarchy of "garbagemen," "fry cooks" and "cab drivers." Case studies of disgruntled tech support operators and HTML code writers make for bitterly funny reading.
...These are the startups that never finish up, companies that hire hundreds of programmers and Web-site designers and techies of all stripes, then merge or downsize or go out of business before anyone can cash in. The authors take the reader on an anthropological expedition through what they call the New Media Caste System. At the bottom rung are the "garbagemen," the guys who have to get the server up and running when it crashes, who have to rush to help the digital morons who can't figure out how to open their e-mail. At the top, of course, are the "robber barons," the guys who really do get mind-blowing wealth and profiles in Wired magazine. For each level, the authors tell an instructive, cautionary tale of life in the new economy. They focus on the realities if the cyber-sweatshop culture of e-commerce, showing that most Internet careers are nasty, brutish, and short
Prudloe Vensigian from Deep Run Mobile Home Park, Maryland , November 1, 1999Oh yeah! From reading Netslaves it's easy to tell that these guys have been on the front lines of the new media wars for a long, long time.
Not in the Generals' tents, but out where the layoff bullets fly and talented employees are more often rewarded by watching their kiss-ass co-workers get promoted over their heads than by anything else. If you are in, or want to get into, the fast-paced Internet go-go economy, you must read this book. No, you're not the only one who has found (or will find) that the pot of gold at the end of the Internet rainbow has already been emptied by investment bankers and other leeches, and that your share is just big enough to rent a studio apartmen, pay your ISP bills, and buy takeout pan pizzas every few days.
I create Web site content for a living, so I live what these guys write, and dammit, I still love my work as much as ever despite the fact that doing the scut work behind the Internet is just as horrid as Steve and Bill say it is. As the late songwriter and newspaper humorist Sylvia Miller put it, "If misery loves company, then you're the one for me. You like to cry into your beer, wine always makes me shed a tear."
If you read newspapers, books, or follow Net-business coverage on TV, you might well think work on the Net is mostly about the billionaires who found Hotmail or Yahoo or Netscape, or the clean, benefit-laced, campus-like work environments they provide. You'd have no way of knowing the much more pervasive and unnerving reality: for every one of those there's a zillion companies that come into the world still-born, fail miserably, make and sell crummy stuff, and hire countless miserable, exploited, harassed and burned-out programmers, techies, geeks and nerds.Baldwin and Lessard are combat veterans of the Net, both in terms of writing and personal experience. They are also long-standing Truth Tellers.
In addition to writing about computing for a number of magazines and websites, they also run the guerilla website NetSlaves, a running testimonial to real life for many in the hi-tech workplace.
"NetSlaves" is a terrific extension of the site, one of the few books to come off of a website that really works as a book. Lessard and Baldwin have a powerful story to tell, and they do it with a lot of punch. "NetSlaves" ought to be handed out to every graduate of every tech school, and given to every new employee of every Net company.
Baldwin and Lessard say their grand "pre-alpha" statement about the Nature of Net-Slavery is this:
"Technology has changed, but human nature hasn't. Whether it's the Gold Rush of 1849 or the Web Rush of l999, people are people. More often than not, they're miserable, nasty, selfish creatures, driven by vanity and greed, doing whatever they can to get ahead, even if it means stepping on the person next to them, crushing the weak, and destroying themselves in the process."
The authors don't have a particularly high regard for many forms of Net work, which they lambaste as the New Media Caste System, but they care about Net workers, and the book is curiously affectionate, even loving about them, as well as a hoot to read.
Both concede that one of their purposes in writing "NetSlaves" is to have the book serve as a quasi-historical, quasi-anthropological reflection of a particular moment in the culture.
Although the tone of "NetSlaves" is informal and funny, the point is pretty serious. "NetSlaves" has done what legions of reporters and authors have so far failed to do: paint a truthful picture of about the new nature of work in the techno-centered world.
For all of the media blabber about Net commerce and hi-tech startups, life in this fast lane can be brutal - insane hours, almost no employee-employer loyalty, greed and moral cowardice, help-desk geeks driven mad by enraged customers, back-stabbing, savage pressure, competiveness and the many resultant neuroses from all of the above.
Baldwin and Lessard make no pretense of objectivity. They write with almost ferocious authority and persuasiveness. They describe themselves as "two angry, cranky bastards out for blood" on behalf of their exhausted selves and the countless burnouts, geniuses, thieves, opportunists, workaholics and losers they've encountered along the way.
"NetSlaves" gives us a whole new language for the villains and back-stabbers who make up the hi-tech workplace. Particular venom is reserved for the "Fry Cooks," the "get it done at all costs" project people of the New Media Caste System. (There's also the "Garbagemen," the workers who have to get servers up and running when they crash).
My favorite chapter is about the "Cab Drivers," the haunted and hunted itinerant Web freelancers who design sites, followed closely by "Gold Diggers and Gigolos," a scathing portrait of the ambitious, night-crawling, hard-partying, butt-kissing movers and shakers and wannabees of hi-tech work world.
"Most Web sites are designed by itinerant, restless young people who have given up the constraints of working for one company in particular, in exchange for the self-determination of pursuing their own path. The rationale is that they can earn a higher hourly rate and pick and choose their projects.
"The reality, however," write Lessard and Baldwin, "is that these Cab Drivers have to constantly hustle for work and their passengers, or clients, who are also cash-crunched, are notorious for skipping out on their fares. Added to this is the lack of health benefits that Cab Drivers face - a plight which has forced many to simply neglect themselves." This is a world in which workers are terrified or despondent when forced to take a few weeks off, convinced they'll fall behind forever.
"NetSlaves" succeeds wonderfully in its goal to tell the truth about a particular culture at a critical juncture in time. It is, in fact one of the few telling looks inside the new kinds of workplaces springing up in the hi-tech, global economy. Workers beware.
Charles H. Ferguson / Hardcover / Published 1999
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Hardcover - 392 pages (October 18, 1999)
Times Books; ISBN: 0812931432 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.26 x 9.57 x 6.50
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Reviewer: petej from Washington, DC February 12, 2000
I am sure there are many who read these books and will never go near such deals or people. Being smack in the IT industry, and having built and sold a company, I was spellbound by the detail and sheer volume of info on how VC's, top tier vendors, and deal structures actually work. If you have been involved in the sale of an IT company, or will be, or even have significant stock options to dream on, this is as much a how-to book as it is a detailed chronical. Every time you finish a sitting with this book, you will find your teeth clenched, and you will be asking yourself if you're truly up for the fight...You will glimpse a world that both beckons and intimidates.
High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glo
Reviewer: Ken Kappel ken@webglobal.com
Charles H. Ferguson has written an astonishing book, which operates on many levels. As Bob Metcalf, Ethernet inventor and founder of 3COM noted in his book jacket blurb, “…. Every would-be Silicon Valley entrepreneur should read this book.” Amen. With interest it is noted that Metcalf appears to be the only individual “brave enough” to contribute a book jacket blurb to this superb book. Hats off to Metcalf, and Ferguson, of course.
Mr. Ferguson exposes the dirty dancing that takes place between many Venture Capital firms and their prey – unsophisticated Entrepreneurs with good ideas. If you’re writing a Business Plan … or about to … if you’re intrigued by the New Economy … if you want to understand what really happened to Netscape … if you want to stand back in awe and understand how Microsoft does it … BUY THIS BOOK, and read it before you do anything else.
Beyond merely brilliant, penetrating and scholarly analysis, Ferguson bravely exposes his deeper and darker nature, and by doing so allows the reader to believe … certainly want to believe … in the validity of the shocking material regarding sharp business practice. Ferguson is un-relenting in self-criticism. Beyond his self-reported arrogance, and without crocodile tears he strongly implies to the reader that his passion, arrogance, tenacity, whatever one wants to call it, is required for an Entrepreneur to succeed against sophisticated players. Yet, this reader became convinced that he cares deeply about people and society at large.
Finally, his PhD in Political Science from MIT, and obvious continuing deep interest and research in all matters relating to telecommunications comes through powerfully in the final chapter. He goes directly to the heart of a systemic US and International problem as no one has done before in print. Ferguson clearly and carefully documents the fact that the local telecommunications companies – telephone and cable -- are not only denying all of us the power of high bandwidth in the digital age, but, in so doing are literally damaging the overall economy.
Here again Mr. Ferguson names names, and shocking as it may be in terms of recent political events, Presidential candidate John McCain is shown to be a water carrier and clear beneficiary of the extraordinary, if not unprecedented Cartel that blocks all of us from having high bandwidth. Buy the book for this chapter alone – if you want your bandwidth.
Arguably, the only thing missing from Mr. Ferguson’s extremely well written book is a copy of the Business Plan he wrote to raise the original VC funding for Vermeer Technologies. On the other hand, if you allow Charles to invest in your startup, he’ll probably share that work. “Six Stars”
Ken Kappel ken@webglobal.com
Reviewer: Gregg D. Miller from Marshalltown, Iowa January 31, 2000
I think I've read every single 'Tell-All' book about Silicon Valley/Alley and it's various characters...this one is a 'must-read'. I learned more here about how the system works and got more insight into it than from all the others combined. I especially appreciated Ferguson's glaringly open self-assessments. His appraisal of the current regulatory environment is well researched and quite good. I found this very enjoyable.
Reviewer: Alain Dominique Marie Gabriel vaillancourt
Reading this book I had sometimes the impression I was rereading the "Confessions" of Saint Augustine or "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe.
Upon further reflection I have to conclude that the book is a cross between "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig" and "My Years With Xerox" by John H. Dessauer. It is very much marked by the fact that the author is a complete and total US citizen, despite his origins in California and his international outlook.
His care for good writing, his humanism, and his non libertarian political stance place him in an interesting and completely different world when compared with others who have chronicled Silicon Valley events in the last 10 years. He has many faults. Sometimes he appears as a short-tempered pedant, blinded by the Internet and oblivious to other radical changes in Science and Technology. These failings however are trivial, compared to those of most authors covering the Valley.
Po Bronson / Hardcover / Published 1999
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by Po Bronson
Our Price: $13.45Paperback - 256 pages Reprint edition (May 2, 2000)
Broadway Books; ISBN: 0767906039 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 7.95 x 5.20
Other Editions: HardcoverAmazon.com Sales Rank: 2,042
Popular in: Los Gatos, CA (#17) J.P. Morgan & Co., Inc (#19) . See more
Not very interesting true tales of Silicon Valley, August 10, 2000
Reviewer: Travis A. Wise (see more about me) fromSan Jose, CA USA
Sorry, but I had a hard time enjoying this book. The book consists of stories about various people in the Valley, some of whom might be described as movers-and-shakers, but most are people who were almost movers-and-shakers of the technological era. It is difficult to follow the stories, because the first half is not really broken up into chapters, but rather sections, which I found incredibly difficult to understand what the meaning was. This book was recommended to me as a way of learning about the behind-the-scenes of IPO's and corporate financing, and I will say that this book DOES satisfy that need - clearly the author was privy to some significant behind-the-scenes meetings and goings-on which are very interesting to learn about in terms of how start up companies get their funding and go public. But I can't help but think that there was a better way to present that information. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Reviewer: Jay Heiser
This is a droll and perceptive look at the current state of high-tech startups. I thought it was both a terrific read and an accurate portrayal of the late 20th century tulip-bulb investment phenomenon. Bronson kept close tabs on several startups, following the whole wacky process from start to beginning. Observing the attorneys from multiple competing backers hash out the final details of a prospectus, he observes "..getting eight attorneys to agree on language is sort of like getting eight children to agree on pizza toppings…" He has a real feel for the humor and insanity of VC-backed firms, but I think that Bronson is on to something deeper. He has captured a significant transition from the glory-bound visionaries to a short-sighted greed-driven model, musing that "..if it stops being fun, our creativity will become formulaic and hackneyed." Perhaps we won't recognize our loss until after nudists are no longer tolerated on the late shift.
After living through too many startups, I recognized a lot of reality here. Bronson is right on with both the details and the spirit. There is a cultural change happening in the nature of startups that won't be completely apparent until it is complete. Then, maybe, we'll look back and recognize the importance of this book.
If that's too profound, then think of it as just a fun book from an engrossing story teller.
by Jane Wood, Denise Silver (Contributor)
Paperback - 402 pages 2nd edition (February 1995)
John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471042994 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 9.20 x 7.50
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 20,585
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Number of Reviews: 3
Overrated Book, Underrated Genius, January 10, 2003
Short story: this book deserves 2.5 stars at best. For the longer version, read on.
Reviewer: "juc3rd" (Sierra Madre, CA) - See all my reviews First the good news. Williams takes some pains to understand and accurately portray RMS, which, from all indications, is no easy task. FAIF, in taking this measured look, does supply some perspective to this at times under-appreciated contributor to the "new" computer revolution.
I also appreciated the eclectic trajectories of the author. First, Williams publishes FAIF under the Gnu Free Document License (GFDL), thereby making it a "free book". Although a completely natural step considering the subject matter, publishing the book as such is an important extension of the general principle that certain ideas should be freely accessible and modifiable. Second, he borrows from a range of excellent sources, even going so far as to reference "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" in the Epilogue!
Furthermore, the abridged history of the roots of hackerdom is particularly well done, if somewhat thickly worded. Attention was also clearly paid to chapter length, making that aspect of the book "readable" and pleasant.
Now for the not-so-good news. The writing style is far from fluid: I didn't feel as though I was lead through the events in the book so much as I was thrown into them. To make matters worse, some events were irrelevant (I still can't figure out why the treatment of RMS's mother's politics were given so much attention), others over-quoted (I can read Levy's "Hackers" myself), while still others were just plain inaccurate.
The last of these transgressions is certainly the most serious, and merits some detail. As one example, on page 143 Williams describes the Linux kernel as "a bored-out, super-charged version of Minix." He continues, "Rather than building their operating system from scratch, Torvalds and his rapidly expanding Linux development team had followed the old Picasso adage, 'good artists borrow, great artists steal'", alluding to his apparent belief that Linux is some sort of clever rehash of something that came before it.
These inaccuracies are not merely an excusable smudging of the facts. In "Just For Fun" (a source to which Williams points frequently enough), Torvalds dedicates *an entire chapter* (Chapter X) to debunking the mythical connections between Minix and Linux (no boring-out, no super-charging). Torvalds also evinces on pp. 77-8 in JFF (paperback edition), the processes involved in writing the operating system. "My terminal emulator grew legs", he says; later "I wrote a disk driver", and finally "I made my filesystem compatible with the Minix system". None of these actions so much as hints at borrowing, not to mention stealing, anything. In fact, at this point *all* of the work appears to be that of Torvalds, and *is* from scratch. (Of course, code reuse isn't a sin anyway, but rather should be-and frequently is-a blessing, as I'm sure RMS himself would readily admit. Regardless, the pejorative tone and inaccurate reporting is no less obnoxious for being subtle.)
Other examples of spin doctoring and untruths can also be found in uncomfortable abundance. Much of the combative posturing vis-à-vis the GNU/Linux and Open Source communities-particularly in relation to the personages of Torvalds and ESR, I found wholly unproductive. These egregious gestures on the part of Williams show a blatant bias to RMS, as either shunned hero or undeserved victim. Elements of both of these are likely true, but not likely to the degree expressed by Williams (or felt by RMS??). In any event, the lack of perspective by the author for his subject is journalistically weak.
And finally, Williams manages to hit a couple of lesser pet peeves of mine. Neither proofreading nor fact checking is my idea of pleasantly interacting with a book. Not only could FAIF have stood another reading before going to press, a spellchecker could have caught a number of obvious spelling errors. To those who would suggest that the GFDL is employed precisely to improve the book, I would suggest that the license should not be used as a shield to ward off criticism of sloppy work.
Anyway, if you want something concise, this will do. Fwiw, I'd advise checking out the site of the book online first, paying attention to the sources that sound interesting, and *reading those first*. Then go to gnu.org or slashdot.org and read items of interest about RMS there. If you still aren't satisfied, you can always go back to faifzilla and read FAIF online (it's more up to date anyway). If after that you STILL want the pen-and-ink version, you know where it's available.
***+ The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary (O'Reilly Linux) The books contains several papers each of them is available electronically.by Linus Torvalds, David Diamond
Our Price: $20.80Hardcover - 288 pages (May 8, 2001)
Harperbusiness; ISBN: 0066620724Too glossy a picture. Eric Raymond probably exclaimed "Who stole my cheese?" when he saw the title ;-)
A very disappointing book, July 8, 2001
Reviewer: jlam@iunknown.com from Toronto, Ontario Canada I really wanted to hear Linus' story, in his own words. Unfortunately, this book showed very little organization aside from chronological; there was no underlying *story* there. Just a bunch of disjointed facts presented in chronological order. The personal anecdotes, while interesting, shed very little insight about Linux. I was hoping to get some real insight into Linus the person and how he is reflected in Linux the operating system. To this end, the book failed to deliver.
However, I was interested enough in his story to slog through the awful writing in this book. Large sections of text (pages on end) are presented in italics, which make it extremely difficult to read. I don't blame Linus for this abomination of a book: that blame clearly lies with David Diamond since that was *his job*.
For folks who really want to read a good book about Linus the person and Linux the operating system, make sure that you read Rebel Code by Glyn Moody. That is a well-written book and thoroughly researched book that places Linux within the context of the open-source movement.
Eric S. Raymond / Hardcover / Published 1999
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Average Customer Review: *****
Sloppy typesetting. After first paper is very boring. A lot of self-serving hype about Linux and open source movement. The book is a good primer for the latecomers who want to join the hype and the circus. Uneven quality of papers included. Actually the book is pretty expensive if you thing that it contains only one really important paper. But the first paper has historic value even if the content is, as one Amazon reviewer put it, "pseudo-science horse manure." See my review of the principal part of the book in The Second Look on the Cathedral and Bazaar(Open Source Software Development as a Special Type of Academic Research. Part 2). Generally other books on software engineering would be a better reading. Reading Brooks book before than is a must.
Pretentious and Shallow, February 12, 2001
Reviewer: Adrian Cybriwsky from New Haven, CT USA
Raymond's standard talk begins with references to himself as an ordinary but experienced IT guy of sorts who, without any sort of formal training in sociology, psychology, marketing, business, or the like, has become the chronicler of the "gnu generation" (not his quote, just a common one) and predictor of open source things to be. Then, he drones on for an hour or two about sociology, psychology, marketing, business, and the like. I've seen him give this talk in front of academics. Thankfully, he has little shame, or he'd have dropped dead long ago from the subtle looks and snickers that inevitably result from his bombast.My point here is not to bash the earnest-but-misguided ESR. It's rather to warn you, the lay reader--this guy may have attained some sort of status in the open source community which needs such figures, but it doesn't mean that what he has to say is any good or even true. In his works (including "Cathedral"), Eric makes a very one-sided analysis of software engineering methodologies. It's a complete ra-ra piece which fails to seriously address the very many shortcomings of open-source development, including, most critically, the inability to scale timewise as well as commercial software (while not under the GNU licence, two years ago Raymond was predicting the success of the open-source Mozilla browser initiative, which is at this point a complete fiasco). Instead, he talks about obscure supporting sociological constructs such as that of "gift cultures" that would only convince the already converted. The whole "cracker/hacker" distinction is (and I say this as a 14 year IT professional, and linux user / kernel hacker and administrator since 1995) jargony and ultimately unimportant compared to the larger issues:
What people should be getting out of this book (or a book like this) is a balanced, informed view of open source vs commercial software, undertaken with sound research on various cost/effectiveness metrics and some case studies. What we have here is a bible for a community that desperately needs one, because, as Eric's whole thrust implies, it is largely ego driven. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Reviewer: georgina economou (see more about me) fromLords Valley, PA
I don't understand the hype about this book. One is it boring; I mean there is no way this book deserves 200 pages. Two Raymond calls Linux a success but nevers gives a unit of measurement: compared to what? Why? One gets tired of his showing off his little program as a prototype of why Open is great; I use it it is useful but not really a comparison to LINUX. I'd recommend DiBona's OpenSources, interviews with the real players if you want to understand the Open Source movement and why it's important.
Reviewer: Paul R. Nash (see more about me) fromSeattle, WA
Other reviewers have pointed out that this is more analysis and less manifesto, but that doesn't make it great.At best, this book is a useful introduction to open source community dynamics. At worst, it's a bunch of well-typeset pseudo-science horse manure.
Raymond does a decent job of putting together logically cohesive arguments in favor of his point, but he's so obviously and inextricably biased, that it's hard to accept these arguments with any of the scientfic merit that he seems to believe they deserve. I mean, come on, an anthropological and psychological analysis of why projects don't fork often? Really, it's a bit out there.
The book is a frozen-in-print form of Raymond's evolving online essays on Open Source. I bet you could get them for free on the web, and at that price, they'd be worth reading for sure.
The theories presented here are somewhat intriguing, but should not be taken as the gospel, despite the religious invocation of the word "cathedral." Change Bazaar to bizaar and the title becomes more accurate.
Reviewer: A reader fromL.A., California
Well, I agree pretty much with the only negative review I saw here...Linux and FreeBSD have been around for a while now, they're only recently getting popular and moving in the mainstream and everybody is jumping on the bandwagon. Microsoft bashing isn't new either, but somehow it's become the cool thing to do. Some of the essays are well written but as with the other reviewer I don't see why the author is as popular as he is in the community. The book is a good primer for the latecomers who want to join the hype and the circus.
Open source is a joke..., March 7, 2000
Reviewer: A reader fromSeattle, Washington
I don't see how or why this author is so big in the Open Source community. This collection of his opinions is uneducated and insufferable. Why should we take for gospel what he writes? The book's essays have no sense of cohesion (what's with the essay on how to be a hacker? If I were a programmer, I'd care, but I'm not so why is it in here?). His first few essays summarize the book: Hacker: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. Was hugely disappointed that O'Reilly saw fit to publish this.
Robert Young, Wendy Goldman Rohm / Hardcover / Published 1999
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Reviewer: Rick Giovannelli from Charlotte, NC January 3, 2000
A fascinating story that succeeds somehow despite the terrible writing. It as if the authors simply assembled at random the chapters and, in many cases, whole paragraphs within any given chapter. There is no discernable flow or organization to the tale -- chronological or otherwise -- and it is difficult to follow the events being described. As acknowledged in one of the introductions, it appears that the book was all too hastily thrown together in the face of a looming deadline. Still, the story is worth reading for software engineers, entrepreneurs and others involved in the VC industry.
by Thomas Sowell Our Price: $22.00 Paperback - 448 pages Reprint edition (October 1996)
Basic Books (Short Disc); ISBN: 0465037380 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.21 x 9.21 x 6.10
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 62,321
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Number of Reviews: 12
Reviewer: Gary North (see more about me) fromFayetteville, Arkansas
Sowell, an economist by training, assumes the economist's standard definition of a scarce resource: "At zero price, there is greater demand than supply." Nothing special here. Then he applies this axiomatic principle to knowledge and decisions based on knowledge. The fun begins. Page after page, he uses this intellectual insight to shoot sacred cows. I have never read any book that offers a greater number of fascinating insights, page for page, based on a seemingly noncontroversial axiom. Modern social policy and far too much of modern social theory are based on this premise: "Accurate knowledge is, or at least should be, a free good. When it is not, the civil government should coerce people to provide it." It is a false premise, and it produces costly errors -- another implication of his premise that accurate knowledge is not a free resource. Buy this book. Read it. Twice. Maybe more. (As an author, I will say this: Sowell makes brilliant writing look too easy and the rest of us look too lazy.)
Clayton M. Christensen / Hardcover / Published 1997
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An insightful look at business history, economics & biology
Christensen looks at the business trajectories of the disk drive and steel industries from a biological perspective and discovers a kind of universal punctuated equilibrium he calls "disruptive technological change." He convincingly demonstrates how great companies that do everything "right" will stumble if they don't recognize and address the forces of disruptive technological change. While his thesis (that the best business practices will lead to failure) is initially counter-intuitive, Christensen provides a simple frame for explaining how the forces of innovation fundamentally direct the course of industry success and failure.A distortion of the real world to fit a simple theory
Christensen has re-observed that mature companies have difficultly dealing with the low end of their market. Because of my personal experience my comments are limited to his analysis of the disk drive industry. He force fits his observations to his theory; in my opinion his observations have little connection with the industry's real history. In one sense his theory fails the Occam razor test; a much simpler theory is raised in "Capital Market Myopia," a Harvard Business School paper which notes that in the 80's the Capital market funded too many companies - 80 or so companies all of whom expected 20% market share. Each plan by itself made sense and was fundable, but the totality was doomed to massive failure. I can't comment on his other examples, but if his rigor is consistent, then I suspect his history is equally flawed. In the end, what is so novel about the observation that large companies have difficultly dealing with the low end of their market - that's the automobile story in compacts; IBM's story in minicomputers, etc.? Save your money!
Chris Dibona(Editor), et al / Paperback / Published 1999
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Reviewer: Anthony Michael Tregre November 3, 1999
To begin this book in style, you will want to skip straight ahead to Richard Stallman's chapter, then read the rest at your leisure (or else you won't know anything about the truth behind all of this). Most of the people who wrote this book (not to mention those who read it) are in serious need of a clue-by-four.
To begin, ``open source'' is just a buzzword created by ESR and others to seduce Big Business. The proper term is ``free software''. The Free Software Movement has been in effect for more than a decade. Also, Linus Torvalds is not the magical inventor of an OS that everyone makes him out to be. Linus wrote the first versions of a kernel (Linux) which was later placed into an operating system (GNU) in order to make it fully operational. GNU began loooong before Linux did (the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation were begun by Richard Stallman, and thus was born the Free Software Movement), and AFAIK, very little of the code in Linux was written by Linus at this point, relatively speaking.
Thus, the extremely poor rating is due to the intense misinformation spread by the various authors and, indeed, the editors. Those that are already in the know about free software likely won't need this book, though it may prove interesting. For the intended audience, however, this book is a complete and total lose.
by Richard B. McKenzie Hardcover - 288 pages (April 4, 2000)
Perseus Pr; ISBN: 0738203319 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.06 x 9.53 x 6.37
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 41,795
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Number of Reviews: 10
table of contents
Reviewer: A reader fromdallas
The technological revolution should be causing a fundamental reevaluation of the government's role in the economy. Whether that reevaluation takes place, or government policy stays rooted in 19th-century understanding will be determined for some time to come by the Justice Department's case against Microsoft. For a accessible and lively account of the issues involved and what is at stake, I can think of no better book than Trust on Trial by Richard McKenzie. Is Microsoft a monopolist? The Justice Department says yes based on considerations that were thought relevant when the Sherman Antitrust statute become law in 1890. McKenzie makes a compelling case that these considerations no longer provide useful guidance to antitrust policy. Microsoft may have a dominant market share, but it certainly is not acting like a monopolist. Monopolists are suppose to restrict output and raise price, but Microsoft has done exactly the opposite. McKenzie explains how the network and "lock-in" effects that the justice department argues Microsoft are using to exploit consumers have rendered traditional notions of monopoly obsolete. Instead of these effects allowing Microsoft to exploit consumers, they explain why competition in the software industry, and other technology industries is more intense than ever and why this competition, which is enormously beneficial to consumers, leads to firms that temporarily dominate their industry. And the only hope these firms have for prolonging this dominance is by not behaving like a monopolist. In addition to providing powerful economic insights, McKenzie also points to the real motivation driving the Microsoft case, and it has nothing to do with protecting the consumer. The justication for antitrust action is to protect the consumer by protecting competition. Unfortunately, in reality the motivation has more often than not that of protecting competitors who find they can do better by influencing politicians than by satisfying consumers. This certainly seems to be true in the Microsoft case, and McKenzie pulls no punches when laying out the evidence. It should be emphasized that this book is not a puff piece for Microsoft. McKenzie has no financial or emotional stake in Microsoft's successes of failures, and he points to the blemishes and warts on Microsoft's behavior. McKenzie's motivation seems to be nothing more than a desire that sound economic analysis be used to determine what is best for the consumer--something that should be the dominant motivation of the Justice Department, but which obviously isn't. A great book. Enjoyable and informative.
Eric S. Raymond(Compiler) / Paperback / Published 1996***+ Hackers; Heroes of the Computer Revolution ~
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Actually old e-text variants(Jargon File) are much better than the book. See Classic for more information
Steven Levy / Paperback, second edition (first 1984) / Published 1994
Amazon Price: $12.95
by Cary Nelson (Editor), Barbara Ehrenreich (Paperback - April 1997)The Decline of the German Mandarins The German Academic Community, 1890-1933
Lux et veritas revisited, September 18, 1997
Reviewer: dan.heaton@yale.edu from New Haven CT
A certain elite university boasts (literally) an endowment of $5.7 billion (yes, billion with a B)--or did as of Tuesday, 16 September; you should add a million or two per day to get the approximate sum on the day you read this. On that same date the university announced that it will embark on a $1 billion (with a B) program to renovate the buildings on its campus. Yet just eighteen months ago, this same anonymous university--by far the biggest employer in one of the most economically depressed cities in the nation--engaged in a no-holds-barred campaign to break the two unions that represent its nonacademic labor force. And just before that, the university crushed the latest effort by the graduate students' union, which was seeking, before anything else, simply to get the university to admit the self-evident truth that teaching assistants are employees and that, as such, they have the right to bargain collectively.This institution fosters an extreme but not atypical example of the condition described in this book's subtitle. The academic labor force in the United States, from the celebrated professor to the undervalued custodian, faces an unprecedented crisis, a crisis deftly delineated in the seventeen essays of this book, roughly half of which focus on the labor struggles at the above-unnamed (but named in the book) elite university. That struggle brought support from labor's allies nationwide, but in the end it did little to change the workers' status from what frighteningly parallels--as Stephen Watt puts it in the book's most poignant metaphor--that of miners trapped in a "company town," where the perverted law of supply and demand means that the company supplies the work, so the company can demand whatever conditions are to its liking.
The book does not pretend to bipartisanship, and at times polemic detracts from persuasiveness. But the best of the essays--like Watt's, Kathy Newman's, and particularly Michael Bérubé's--back up their rousing calls to collective action with coolly logical evidence and solidly ordered argument. This is an important book for anyone who is concerned with the state of labor and/or higher education; these days, who can afford not to be?
Fritz Ringer Paperback Published 1991
Raymond Florax / Hardcover / Published 1992
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Reviewer: jbbole0@pop.uky.edu (see more about me) from Lexington Kentucky
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