dials down the hype
The free software or open source movement has, not surprisingly, garnered lots of free publicity. Encouraged by massive hyperventilating by its proponents. In contrast, this book steps back and offers a more dispassionate and nuanced analysis of the zeitgeist, for surely the movement deserves that label.
You get background as to the social motivations and the history of the movement. Which is shown to predate the Web and linux. GNU in the 1980s was all about alternatives to proprietary operating systems and compilers.
The book can help you dial down the hype. Yet, ultimately, it offers a broadly positive affirmation of the movement. There is shown to be no impediment or logical flaw to cause open source to not stop growing. Rather, the book suggests that both proprietary and open source software will always be with us, albeit in a sometimes uneasy coexistence.
