My friend Karl Fogel has recently published a book on free software projects that should be of interest to researchers and developers alike: Producing Open Source Software. Karl and I were feverishly writing our free software “stuff” at the same time, meeting up for dinner and late night deserts to take small breaks from what was an obsessive and compulsive time in our lives.

Karl is an excellent writer and has put a LOT of thought into this book, which gives to-be-project-leaders a serious heads up on how to go about organizing a project. Even if it is more of a “how to” book, it is ethnographic in the sense that he derives his data from, well, being a participant in free software development. And for those who like to pick apart the cultural and ethical world of F/OSS, well this is an excellent book to scour because of its normativity.

Truly he has thought of almost everything to cover, from the technologies that are imperative for development to the problem ofdifficult people

And true to his geek ethics, the book is free as in speech. So order it, or download it, or read it online; it is there for you to read and share!