Review of 'Free and Open Source Software, Policy, Law and Practice', by Noam Shemtov (ed.) and Ian Walden (ed.), (Oxford University Press, 2014), £95, ISBN: 9780199680498

Abstract

Assembling a book of a dozen essays, even if one is your own, is a massive task and one that is fraught with pitfalls. To name but a few: choosing a theme that is broad enough to encompass a variety of perspectives on the one hand, but narrow enough to make sense as a single volume; finding high-quality authors in the particular field who are willing to contribute, and making sure that they do contribute within a timeframe; editing and sculpting a sequence of papers that makes some kind of coherent sense. The reviewer faces the attendant challenge of how to provide the potential audience for the book with an accurate view of the contents on differentiated topics and perspectives. Indeed, even identifying a target audience can be an issue. Hereafter I shall make some comments about open source software generally, then outline the various parts of the book to give an overall flavour of the 12-course menu, and finally pick on a few topics that are of particular interest to this reviewer.