From the author:

It’s not that a lot hasn’t already been written about Open Source, but
rather that the books I had read mostly represented one or other of two
camps. If a book is written by somebody inside the Open Source
community, the content tends to be difficult for the average person, that is
anyone who isn’t already fascinated by the detailed history of Linux or the
particulars of a given programming language. If, on the other hand, a book
has been written by an outsider for the benefit of other outsiders, it usually
loses some of the honesty and directness, some of the magic of the Open
Source attitude – in short, something of the very quality that had always
fascinated me about that community. That’s why I wanted to write a book that gives a broader view of Open Source than being yet another explanation
of how Linux works in a computer; to write one that’s more about how Open
Source works outside a computer, drawing on real examples and stories
from the history of the Linux and Open Source revolution. My book now
has more than sixty stories, or case studies, and I think I’ve done reasonably
well in covering the players who have taken part in the revolution during the
first 13 years of Linux. I trust readers will find the examples I have chosen
as fascinating as I do.