The Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source

The Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source is the first book to arm IT directors and system administrators with the knowledge they need to evaluate open source software for their particular computing environments. Winslow guides the reader through the process of finding practical uses for open source that will integrate seamlessly into their existing infrastructure, as well as understanding the costs and savings. This book includes information on the best professional-quality low-cost software for Linux, with dozens of listings, including where to download and where to find support. Case studies are used to demonstrate ways open source has been successfully deployed by peers.

• Section One: Finding Practical Use for Open Source Software
  1. Why Open Source is Important Today
     1. Why Open Source Has Entered the Mainstream
     2. Where Did Open Source Come From?
     3. What Managers Need to Know About Open Source Licensing
     4. Seven Basic Truths About Open Source
     5. A Decade of Linux
     6. The Growing Trustworthiness of Open Source
     7. The Proof is in Real World Deployments
  2. Proof of Concept: Case Studies
     1. Software Company Saves $400 - $500 Per Desktop
     2. Patience Pays Off in a Conservative IT Environment
     3. Manufacturing Company Converts to Linux Desktops in 120 Days
     4. Local Government Saves $27,000 With Squid/SquidGuard
     5. Volunteer Effort Saves a Charter School $145,000
     6. State Government Leads the Way with LAMP
     7. OpenNMS for Managed Hosting Company
     8. MySQL for High-traffic Online News Service
     9. City Government Saves with Thin Clients
     10. NASA Department Saves Nearly $180,000 with MySQL
     11. Linux Thin Clients Best Choice for 1200 Remote Users
     12. Lessons Learned
  3. Discovering Your Migration Candidates
     1. What Are Your Goals?
     2. Finding the Low-Hanging Fruit
     3. What Drives Migration Timing
     4. Determining Open Source Migration Candidates
     5. Testing for Seamless Integration
     6. Putting Together a Feasability Report
     7. Looking at What open Source is Worth to the Organization
  4. Discovering Your savings
     1. The Case For a Detailed Analysis
     2. The ROI Formula
     3. Savings
     4. Costs
     5. Calculating the ROI
     6. Creating a Feasability/ROI Report
     7. Establishing Buy-in
     8. Pilot Projects
     9. Taking the Long Term View
     10. Migration Timing
     11. The Purpose of an ROI Assessment
• Section Two: Established Open Source Software
  5. Linux Distributions
     1. Distribution Pricing and Licensing
     2. Red Hat
     3. Mandrakelinux
     4. SUSE and Novell
     5. Linspire
     6. Debian
     7. Other Linux Providers
     8. Support and Maintenance Issues
     9. Choosing a Provider
  6. Proven Server-side Applications
     1. General Guidelines
     2. Basic Administration
     3. File and Print Servers
     4. Basic Internet Infrastructure
     5. Email and Groupware Solutions
     6. Website Content Management
     7. Network Management with OpenNMS
     8. Heartbeat for Failover Service
     9. More Than Just Replacements
  7. Proven Desktop Applications
     1. Where Open Source Works Best for the Desktop
     2. The Two Types of Linux Desktop
     3. The Desktop Environment
     4. Choosing and Customizing a Desktop Distribution
     5. Creating a Seamless Hybrid Environment
     6. The Office Suite
     7. Web Browsers
     8. Email
     9. Additional Desktop Software Requirements
     10. Running Windows Applications on Linux
     11. Linux on Thin Clients
     12. Desktop Choices
  8. Maintaining Platform-independent In-house Code
     1. Adherence to Open Standards and Protocols is Critical
     2. Languages
     3. Multi-purpose Developement Environments
     4. CVS for Source Code Control
     5. Databases
     6. Application Servers
     7. A Tool for Porting Existing Visual Basic Code
     8. Customizing Open Source Projects
     9. Managing Ongoing Development to Maximize Flexibility
• Section Three: Moving Forward
  9. Keeping Current on Open Source Developments
     1. Trade Magazines
     2. Conferences
     3. Support Resources
     4. Sources for Software
     5. Advocacy and Standards Organizations
     6. Keeping Current
  10. The Ongoing Economics of Open Source
      1. The Budgetary Impact Over Time
      2. How to Keep Your Options Open
      3. What To Expect for the Next Few Years
      4. The Pragmatic Approach Will Win

This is just a meaningless index of different F/OSS software/where the author doesn't really make a difference between Free and Open)

As all such books, it is dated as soon as it goes to press, but I can assure you that this was not very good in 2005 either…

You can miss this one. In fact, I recommend that you do just that, miss it!