John’s Blog

I don’t read a lot of management books, although there will be a few this month on my list — I read this one because a friend of mine gave it to me. The prose wasn’t fantastic, and I think the ideas are pretty simple, but it did remind me of a few important things, and has helped my thinking lately. Okay book overall.

I actually read this book nearly a year ago, when it came out in January, but wasn’t sure how to do a review of it, since I’m so involved with the subject matter (I’m on the Board of Directors at OSAF, and helped Mitch start it several years ago, while I was at Reactivity and he was an investor there). I have too many personal reactions and feelings about the book to write a very useful review, I think. My short analysis, though, is that it’s definitely not a “modern version of Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine,” as some of the reviews claim. Kidder’s book about Data General and the techie culture of Route 128 was a seminal achievement, and one of the first really useful and understandable accounts about how techies do their work.

This book tried to give insight like that into the software industry, and at the same time tried to describe open source dynamics, and I think it was only marginally successful at each. It also illustrates the authorial hazard of trying to write history while it’s happening — when he was choosing his subject matter, it seemed likely (to some/many) that OSAF would be the super-successful open source project for consumers — Mozilla was a bit of an afterthought at that point — but we know how the Mozilla story played out, while OSAF is still a bit in the middle.

I think many of his conclusions (software is hard, for example, or that complexity is outrunning our ability to cope with it) are too heavily rooted in the particulars of OSAF, and he would have had a completely different outlook, and made different conclusions, if he had been at Mozilla or Google or Facebook over the past few years.

It’s an okay book, but I think has the serious flaw that he was trying to write about history while it was being created, and lacks a sense of perspective as a result.

I love Latin. What can I say. I took a bunch of it in high school, went to a bunch of Latin contests in Texas and for nationals. (They’re like Jeopardy games, with buzzers and all. Seriously. I was in band, too. Big nerd. see also this (3rd from left in back) and this. Fish gotta swim.)

Anyhoo, this was a fun book for me to read. Not too heavy, but reminded me about my Roman history and mythology and architecture and life, but also had little lessons about declining and conjugating and generally being a Latin nerd. In one really memorable part he describes the difference between Berks (basically Latin nerds who don’t put on airs) and Wankers (you know, the other kind). I’m probably a bit of both.

Highly recommended for all Berks and Wankers.

An okay book, as Clive Barker books go. From the point of view of a demon trapped in the book in the 15th century. This one reminded me a little of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, but, you know, without any of the redeeming value.