For Fun and Profit is, undoubtedly, a work of courage. Most of the key actors in the history of the multifarious Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement are alive, active, and -- to understate -- argumentative. Nevertheless, Tozzi offers us a concise, clearly written, and argued account of the movement and its software creations that have become so fundamental to computing today, from the online world to Android smartphones, and from the 'cloud' to proliferating embedded controllers now hailed as the 'Internet of Things.' -- David C. Brock, Director, Center for Software History, Computer History Museum; coauthor of Moore's Law and Makers of the Microchip The history of open-source software is badly needed, given both its ubiquity and the passions engendered in the movements connected to its production and use. This book presents the motivations and activities of open-source leaders, namely Eric S. Raymond, Richard Stallman, and Linus Torvalds, at a depth and with a balance that is unprecedented. Tozzi is to be commended for taking such care to separate the hype surrounding open-source pioneers from the many useful insights their experiences reveal about how software and society shape each other. -- Joseph A. November, Associate Professor of History, University of South Carolina; author of Biomedical Computing
Christopher Tozzi is Assistant Professor of History at Howard
University and a freelance writer. He is the author of
Nationalizing France's Army- Foreign, Black, and Jewish Troops in
the French Military, 1715-1831.
Jonathan Zittrain is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where
he cofounded the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and
Professor of Computer Science at Harvard's School of Engineering
and Applied Sciences. He is the author of The Future of the
Internet--And How to Stop It.
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