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Issue No 152 September 2005

Book Review

Open source solutions for small business problems by John Locke

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Open source is the big buzz in computing these days. If you believe supporters, it is far cheaper and more secure than competing products from traditional sources such as Microsoft. While this claim may be somewhat overblown there is no denying that there are some first class programs coming out of the open source movement, with Linux and the Apache server software being the poster children of choice.

In this book John Locke talks about a range of open source software that can help in the running of small business. He covers a huge range of applications, from the well known to the obscure, and discusses their pros and cons in detail.

The information is solid and most chapters start with material anyone can understand. However many chapters quickly become very technical and you need to be a medium-to-advanced geek to fully understand a blizzard of technical detail. This leads to a rather disjointed, or out of focus, feel to many of the sections as you quickly descend from the basics into the technical abyss of secure sockets and arcane acronyms.

Included with the book is a cd-rom containing many of the programs discussed. Given how fast the computer industry moves it is a safe bet that many of the programs will have newer versions available by the time you get you hands on the book.

The sheer amount of detail makes this book an imposing proposition with over 500 pages filled to overflowing with dense text alleviated by only the occasional illustration. This is not a book you can just pick up and dip into.

Hadrian Taylor
Business and Computing Centre