IBM Open Source Book, a short summary

Everytime we browse the net or just doing some “Googling” there will always be a time that we came across some terms such as “Free Software”,”Open Source” or “FLOSS” either by direct link from a news or even from banner ads. For those who is not familiar with those terminology then this humble blog post is for you and perhaps recommending a book might shed a little light on the technology around us. I was still completing the book “Google Hacking For Penetration Testers” when one member from Open Source Group in LinkedIN posted a link to the newly released IBM Books which I’ve downloaded right away and since the free ebook contains only 138 pages reading material,might as well finished it first.

I’ll divide the summary into 2; first half contains on what to expect on the first 3 chapters and the other half deals with the remaining chapters.

The first few chapters gives the reader a glimpse on the history, some people behind it and evolution of how “Open Source” software came into existence, considerations on the possible benefits and risk of using such solution, on going trends and how being involve with different projects could benefit you as a possible contributor on your career. There are some “Did you know?” stuff that a user might find informative and check the web for relevant data like one below.

“First web server was developed in December 24,1990 which was CERN httpd, however Apache HTTP server that was developed in 1994 by Robert McCool still powers majority of websites today comprising of almost 100+ millions hosted sites.”

Additional source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd

These section also focuses on how commercial company could use “Open Source” and how existing companies earn money despite releasing software as “Free” in the community at large.Lastly on first half, the authors discusses to the confusing different licensing scheme that a developer or company can adapt to fit their business needs when releasing solution/s that has “Open Source” component or has some GPL,MIT,BSD to name a few Open Source licenses attached to it.

The other half of course deals with community and the participation on “Open Source” project; if you have questions on how a project is delivered by community, the stages/cycles it undergoes and some development tools that developers used; then reading this part is worth a time. This section also give examples on what means or channels available to sync/coordinate people since most developers are doing work in different timezone and some are from different part of the world.The remaining few chapters also sited some case studies done by IBM on how they’ve contributed in the community including their “Express” edition of DB2, one of the leading enterprise database solution today.

Above summary is short but for a 138 pages ebook giving introduction on how “Open source” works, the ecosystem it has and the benefits it can give to a developer or company; the authors indeed delivers to inform and gives the big picture that the reader can easily understand.

Title:
Getting Started with Open Source Development
A book for the community by the community
Publisher: IBM – DB2 On Campus Series
ISBN: ???
Number of Pages: 138
Authors:
Rachna Kapur, Mario Briggs,Tapas Saha,Ulisses Costa,Pedro Carvalho,Raul F. Chong,Peter Kohlmann

Download the Open Source Development Ebook now! (You need an IBM ID which registration is easy)
Disclaimer: Above summary is a personal inputs after reading the ebook…Cheers. c”,)