How Open Source Ate Software: Understand the Open Source Movement and So Much More

by Gordon Haff

Learn how free software became open source and how you can sell open source software. This book provides a historical context of how open source has thoroughly transformed how we write software, how we cooperate, how we communicate, how we organize, and, ultimately, how we think about business values. This fully updated second edition includes an entire chapter on legal considerations such as trademarks and the latest happenings in open source licensing. It also expands on open hardware trends such as RISC-V, open governance, and the difference between community projects and commercial products, especially as seen through the lens of security.

You’ll look at project and community examples including Linux, BSD, Apache, and Kubernetes, understand the open source development model, and how open source has influenced approaches more broadly, even within proprietary software, such as open betas. You'll also examine the flipside, the "Second Machine Age," and the challenges of open source-based business models. Today, open source serves as shorthand for much broader trends and behaviors. It’s not just about a free (in all senses of the word) alternative to commercial software. It increasingly is the new commercial software. How Open Source Ate Software, second edition reveals how open source has much in common, and is often closely allied, with many other trends in business and society. You'll see how it enables projects that go beyond any individual company. That makes open source not just a story about software, but a story about almost everything. What You'll Learn Who This Book Is For

Anyone who is contemplating building a community and a business around open source software.

260 pages, Paperback

Published February 10, 2021

Reviews

[Alejandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has first-hand experience and understands the ins and outs of open source. This book is a good resource to understand how open source works.

[Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gordon has put together a solid, well-researched backgrounder to modern open source that could help architects, corporate strategists and policymakers alike. He quotes and refers to several other key authors and work in this space, and complements with valuable anecdotes from project leaders. I particularly enjoyed the way the history is laid out in chapters 1-2 and 4-5. This book isn’t a self-contained guide to setting up an open source program and as such it doesn’t prescribe a formulaic approach to open source consumption in software products or measuring community success. Fortunately, by just inspecting the work of others that Gordon cites throughout the book it’s easy to find the next set of materials to explore. Given this is a short and easy read, I find this a valuable reference for newcomers that can spare career open sourcerers from having to explain the basics, particularly for those of us that lack a US-centric historical account or that can be forgetful of details. I would also recommend Eghbal’s book as a diversion around chapter 3 or so.

[e · Rating 4 out of 5]

you can’t cover it all in one book, but Haff gives the historical highlights that will always be relevant—commentary on “now” is always tough and outdated the moment it’s printed, but for a five year old book, Haff spoke on big issues still around today.

was expecting more of a commentary, but also didn’t mind it being more of a history, especially an accessible and informative one.

[Liang Cao · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not much valuable info

Too much about the common concepts, less value or insight to understand open source software. Maybe good for really very entry level readers