Category: Best Open Source-Related Book

As you've probably noticed, we do a lot of book reviews here at Slashdot. But what book do you think deserves the Beanie award? A book on programming? Social Commentary? O'Reilly and Associates? *grin* You can nominate your favorite book - and check out our book reviews for help if you need it.

nominee: "open sources"

[Reinout]

My nominee is "open sources - voices from the open source revolution" [oreilly.com]. It's a book, published by oreilly, with some 14 articles by open source heros.

If you read it you get a very good impression of the whole open source project:

• history (Berkeley unix, history of hackers, RMS)
• mindset, philosophy (RMS, ESR, Larry Wall :-)
• how a particular project works (apache, mozilla, linux
• the company-stuff (netscape, cygnus, red hat)

All in all it makes for a very decent introduction. You get a good overview and you get a foundation of information on which to build your own mindset regarding open source. It filled in quite a few blanks for me, so I like to recommend it hearthily! greetings, Reinout

Samba book!

[papo]

Surely the most deserving title worth the prize is Using Samba by O'Reilly. First because their authors open-sourced the book. You can read it at
this address [samba.org]. Second because Samba is the project who is giving the best advocacy argument to us, Linux lovers. To put a Linux server in an enterprise, instead of (Argh!) NT we must ensure the boss that machines with Windows 95 and 98 also can connect and use the Linux box as easily as if would be an NT. And the Using Samba book is the complete, official and best reference written about the best practices and examples to make Samba works(many times with best performance than a NT or W2K box!).

eXtreme Programming eXplained

[digulla]

Ever wondered why 50% of all software projects use twice or more the time/money scheduled ? And why the other half is canceled prematurely ?

Well, this book gives some hints where to look and how to improve the situation. While it might not be the holy grail of software development, it surely gives a very good insight into what we (desperately) ignored in the past and how it can be improved. At least this time, some very practical advice instead of complicated methodologies which are so complicated to understand that it should make everyone think twice before trying to use them.

--
Dipl. Inf. (FH) Aaron "Optimizer" Digulla
"(to) optimize: Make a program faster by improving the algorithms rather than by buying a faster machine."

The Perl Cookbook

[jbc]

I've been an obsessive collector of O'Reilly books for a number of years, and The Perl Cookbook is hands-down the most useful one in my collection. I can't begin to think how much work went into creating it.

the camel-book of course !

[arnim]

no need to explain, You have it in Your shelf anyway ( i think >500.000 sold )

mostly marketing propaganda

[kfogel]

There's some good stuff in that book, but
a number of the essays are essentially
marketing propaganda for whatever open-source
company that essay's author happens to be
associated with. Personally I don't feel any
need to reward good PR...

Cathedral and the Bazaar

[John Fulmer]

It may be trendy, but the dang thing just makes so much sense, and not only in computer software terms.

Eric Raymond really pointed out the obvious, which is easy to see AFTERWARD.....

jf

O'Reilley's Java In A Nutshell

[mlc]

O'Reilley's Java In A Nutshell is an incredibly useful book. And, of course, an Oreiley book (damn, I can't spell) must win.

Re:mostly marketing propaganda - not quite true

[Reinout]

Some of the stories were propaganda for compagnies. But only some 3 or 4 out of 14 stories!

The large majority isn't firm-PR. But even the firm-PR is fun to read. And much about the Open Source-stuff is about making it all creditable for the business-like people, so dedicating 1/5 of the book for those guys isn't too bad.

Birth of the Chaordic Age

[crackpot]

I'd have to nominate Dee Hock's book Birth of the Chaordic Age. Long before the open-source mantra became the darling of media and big-business Dee Hock founded Visa International, a great example of how "open-source" organizations can be formed for a greater good. This is and was an organization founded on the principles that each of its 22,000 members had the right to collaborate and contribute to Visa (monetary, infrastructure, operating philosophy, etc.) while at the same time competing intensely with each-other in the marketplace.

His philosophy, as outlined in this book, clearly details why nearly each public and private institution today (command and control structures from the industrial revolution - read "closed-source) is inherrently sick and why chaordic (read open-source) organizations are the answer to the many societal and environmental ills plaguing our world. Chaordic organizations best reflect the models for organized behavior exhibited in nature. This is a truly visionary document that takes the open-source message beyond software and technology and applies it to the world around us.

The LaTeX Companion

[crumley]

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, I am nominating The LaTeX Companion.

Its a really nice read about my favorite document preparation system.

The Gimp Uer's Manual by Karin and Olaf S Kylander

[techt]

The manual is extremely well written, and itself is under an open license. It is an invaluable aid to anyone who uses The Gimp. It can be had for free off the web at http://manual.gimp.org/

Just for being there.

[MartyJG]

I'd like to nominate the Linux NAG (Network Administrators Guide) by O'Reilly.

It should get the award just for existing, kindova' lifetime acheivers award. It's a great book for reference, and has allowed people as uninformed as me to actually make some progress with networking Linux to other machines.

The Art of Computer Programming

[Kaufmann]

Okay, so it's not strictly one book, and it's not directly open source-related, but who cares? TAOCP is the computer science book, and that's that.

This message brought to you by Kaufmann: advocating extremely liberal use of HTML tags on Slashdot for a year and a half now.

The Lord of The Rings

[georgeha]

In this three book set, J.R.R Tolkien lays out the framework for an alternate universe based on magic and hand to hand combat. By avoiding a restrictive look and feel license, the Lord of the Rings has spawned an entire genre of fantasy literature.

George

Thinking in Java -- The obvious winner

[hoz]

Great Book! Lots of code to learn from instead of longwinded commentary, accomplished author and its free online at http://www.eckelObjects.com/javabook.html

There's another Samba book

[georgeha]

IDG's Samba Administrator's Handbook, but it shouldn't win, as one of the co-authors spends too much time reloading Slashdot, and would probably blow the prize money on Lego and computers.

George