Andy Oram

Editor

Biography

Andy Oram is an editor at O'Reilly Media, which is a highly respected book publisher and technology information provider. An employee of the company since 1992, Andy currently specializes in free software and open source technologies. His work for O'Reilly includes the first books ever published commercially in the United States on Linux, and the 2001 title Peer-to-Peer. His modest programming and system administration skills are mostly self-taught.

Andy is also a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and writes often for the O'Reilly Network and other publications. Topics include policy issues related to the Internet and trends affecting technical innovation and its effects on society. His web site is www.praxagora.com/andyo.

Andy works at the O'Reilly office in Cambridge, Massachusetts and lives nearby with his wife, two children, and a six-foot grand piano that can often be heard late at night.

Books

Beautiful Security April 2009 Print: $39.99 Ebook: $31.99	Beautiful Code by Andy Oram , Greg Wilson June 2007 Print: $44.99 Ebook: $35.99 (4) (Read Reviews)
Peer-to-Peer by Nelson Minar , Marc Hedlund , Clay Shirky , Tim O'Reilly , Dan Bricklin , David Anderson , Jeremie Miller , Adam Langley , Gene Kan , Alan Brown , Marc Waldman , Lorrie Faith Cranor , Aviel Rubin , Roger Dingledine , Michael Freedman , David Molnar , Rael Dornfest , Dan Brickley , Theodore Hong , Richard Lethin , Jon Udell , Nimisha Asthagiri , Walter Tuvell , Brandon Wiley February 2001 Print: $29.95 (4) (Read Reviews)	Programming with GNU Software by Andy Oram , Mike Loukides December 1996 Print: $39.95 (4) (Read Reviews)
Managing Projects with make by Andy Oram , Steve Talbott Second Edition October 1991 OUT OF PRINT (3) (Read Reviews)

Articles

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Printing Trends in Linux
Publish Date: Sep. 20, 2007Printing has been a notoriously difficult capability to configure in Linux, but work by the Open Printing Working Group is designed to change that. Andy Oram has been examining what we can expect in the future from this initiative, which includes distribution-independent drivers. Why Do People Write Free Documentation? Results of a Survey
Publish Date: Jun. 14, 2007Writing documentation is a thankless job when you're getting paid for it, so why in the world would people voluntarily do it for free? Andy Oram wondered just that, so he conducted a survey. Now he's here to present the results and some conclusions he's drawn. Rethinking Community Documentation
Publish Date: Jul. 6, 2006Good documentation makes good software great. Poor documentation makes great software less useful. What is good documentation, though, and how can communities produce it effectively? Andy Oram explores how free and open source software projects can share their knowledge with users and how publishers and editors fit into the future of documentation. The Long View of Identity
Publish Date: Jun. 29, 2006Who are you online? Your digital identity is a complex bundle of information--not just what you say about yourself, but what other people say about you and how trustworthy they are. O'Reilly editor Andy Oram recently attended the Identity Mashup conference at Harvard Law's Berkman Center and reports on one of the most vital issues of privacy and usability on the internet. The Problem with Webcasting
Publish Date: Jan. 13, 2006Andy Oram examines the new concept of a "webcaster's right" that major web portals are trying to introduce through a World Intellectual Property Organization treaty. The treaty would allow websites to control the dissemination of content they put up. Using the failed database protection laws as an example, Andy analyzes this new threat to the public domain. VoIP is all Business at VON
Publish Date: Dec. 13, 2005O'Reilly editor Andy Oram reports on the state of VoIP from this year's VON conference. As well as looking at some of the latest products and trends, Andy considers the security and policy issues facing the industry. Autumn Symposium Rakes Over Copyright and Patent Law
Publish Date: Nov. 10, 2005Andy Oram looks at the states of copyright, fair use, patent law, and more, as seen through the eyes of attendees at the recent Symposium on Intellectual Property, Creativity, and the Innovation Process. The conference attracted the likes of Marybeth Peters--register of copyrights, IP law critic James Boyle, open source advocate Chris DiBona, and EFF rep Cory Doctorow, to name a few of the people there who've planted stakes in the ground of this seeming turf war. Control Freaks: Modding and the Clash with Law
Publish Date: Oct. 28, 2005Modders, and the millions more who possess a natural creativity and an urge to get control over their lives, have, as Andy Oram puts it, "tumbled head-on into a legal snake pit." Their passion for changing things has become one of the fastest up-and-coming social trends in the U.S., and thus has drawn the litigious eye of large entertainment and media companies. Andy remains optimistic, however, that modders themselves can find ways to shift the focus away from modding as a legal issue, and toward a view of modding as a social and business issue. The Commons Doesn't Have a Business Plan
Publish Date: Jul. 28, 2005The commons used to be a grassy area in the center of town where anyone could graze animals. Now it's a metaphor for anything available to everyone without restriction. Andy Oram argues that this is the ground from which new businesses spring--and that open source and free software are the wellspring for new software and technology. make: The Evolution and Alternatives
Publish Date: Nov. 18, 2004After 13 years of the O'Reilly classic, Managing Projects with make, 2nd Edition, coauthor Andy Oram looks back and summarizes the evolution of make. With the recent release of Managing Projects with GNU make, 3rd Edition, author Robert Mecklenburg offers an adapted excerpt comparing Ant, IDEs, and make for managing the build process. A Firm Foundation for the Linux Desktop
Publish Date: Oct. 28, 2004Nearly every advance of Linux, open source, and free software on the desktop owes a debt to the X Window System. Too often, this debt goes unacknowledged. With the birth of X.org earlier this year, a foundational but once-stagnant project prepares to improve itself and its code to help free desktops everywhere. Andy Oram reports. The State of VoIP
Publish Date: Oct. 22, 2004Fresh back from the Fall 2004 Conference and Expo of the Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition, Andy Oram reports on the state of VoIP: what are its implications, where is it headed, and a detailed look at the many regulations that may help shape its future. Splitting Books Open: Trends in Traditional and Online Technical Documentation
Publish Date: Sep. 23, 2004While technical publishers strive to adapt to new online media and formats, online efforts at self-education by computer users are becoming a form of true grassroots documentation. O'Reilly editor Andy Oram discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each side--traditional books and user self-education--and suggests how they may converge. He also offers suggestions for improving the educational effects of mailing lists, computing project web sites, and other community-based documentation. Symbiot on the Rules of Engagement
Publish Date: Mar. 10, 2004Andy Oram talks to the chief officers of Symbiot Security about their controversial white paper, "The Rules of Engagement". Why Human Rights Requires Free Software
Publish Date: Oct. 11, 2002Human rights workers should be universally feted and supported. Instead, however, they are chronically underfunded, goaded to justify every detail of their work, and threatened with dire harm. For these reasons, human rights work requires free software.

Blog

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More that sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity

November 23 2009

Reactions to Frame Analysis, a wide-ranging interpretation of experience by leading sociologist Erving Goffman. Although the Internet tends to strip away the external meanings Goffman recorded, we still bring our real-life frameworks into online interactions. read more

Success of a Broadcast Medium: The Muzak Transmission Process

November 18 2009

Muzak grew from constant technological innovation and originally succeeded as a broadcast medium using spare spectrum, a business model rarely examined today. read more

Converting to Electronic Health Records: fits and starts

November 10 2009

Data and communications are critical contributors to health care. I recently attended an event covering efforts in my state to promote Electronic Health Records, and what we can do to move faster. read more

Operating system expertise moves outward as programmers job-hop

November 03 2009

I just held a reunion with people I worked with at a real-time and data acquisition computer vendor 20 years ago, and was interested to see how many ended up in another, related line of work. read more

What sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity

October 26 2009

Erving Goffman's classic sociological text, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, helps us understand the contradictory effects of presenting ourselves online, and where both opportunities and dangers lie. read more

Installation guide for Android Donut release

October 23 2009

Zigurd Mednieks, ace telephony developer and co-author of New installation information for the 1.6 "Donut" Android SDK. read more

Vendor Relationship Management workshop

October 14 2009

CRM can offer many valuable benefits, but ultimately the control lies with the vendor. A Vendor Relationship Management workshop at Harvard looked at what it would take to leave control with the customers. read more

Art of Application Performance Testing nominated for award by Automated Testing Institute

October 08 2009

The Art of Application Performance Testing has been nominated for an award by the Automated Testing Institute. Voting is open. read more

How the Zeo sleep device works around the limitations of home monitoring

October 08 2009

The Zeo carries out sophisticated sleep monitoring by intensive analysis of electronic signals. read more

ICANN without restraints: the difficulties of coordinating stakeholders

October 02 2009

The U.S. Department of Commerce, which is ICANN's publicly accountable overseer, announced the most important decision affecting ICANN since its founding: the U.S. government will give up its role as overseer and make ICANN independent. read more

Review of Guobin Yang's "Power of the Internet in China"

September 30 2009

My review of The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online, a combination of research and sociological analysis, read more

Seeking information on free Linux online training

September 29 2009

I'm interested in hearing about good open-source training materials for GNU/Linux use and administration. read more

Chapter-by-chapter coverage of Masterminds of Programming

September 24 2009

Programmer Taran Rampersad planned all along to write a review of Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages--but his reading impressed him so much he ended up writing a review for each chapter. read more

Worldwide Lexicon: matching up technologies and culture to end the language barrier

September 22 2009

Essays by Brian McConnell of World Wide Lexicon and Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices describe the technical and cultural sides of developing communities of volunteer translators. read more

Taxonomy experts presume to teach FCC something about communication

September 21 2009

The Sunlight Foundation wants to redesign the FCC web site, but experts in taxonomy recommend a more deliberate strategy. read more

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