September 4th, 2006
For immediate publication

New book introduces Open Source ideology and business models, entertaining and in layman terms

'Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source' is a newly published book about Open Source ideology and business models. It is divided into 4 parts covering the topic from different angels. Part one introduces the general concept of openness, part two Open Source ideology and values, along with prominent personalities like Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman, part three is an exhaustive study in Linux businesses and their business models and finally part four is an introduction into the emerging trend of applying Open Source ideology and methods to non-technical fields, like Wikipedia or Creative Commons.

"One goal of the book was to introduce Open Source thinking to people who may not yet have been that exposed to it, perhaps because they are not experts in the field of computing. There is currently a strong trend of Open Source methods being applied in all kinds of fields, and I wanted to write in a style understandable to everyone, yet interesting enough also to people who already know a lot about Open Source would like to read it too", the author, Henrik Ingo, explains the books backgrounds.

The book is published through the print on demand self publishing service Lulu.com. "Print on demand is a nice fit to publishing in the internet age. I uploaded a PDF, got a proof copy, make corrections, and there you go. The Lulu.com print quality is actually very high, perfect I would say. but the website itself could probably streamline the process a little bit. Self publishing like this is also very Open Sourcish: When I tried to offer my manuscript to some publishers in Finland, the general or philophically oriented publishers did not really understand what it was about, whereas publishers specializing in computing correctly noted that it isn't really a computing book. With the help of digital printing and self-pbulishing, the book had no problem finding its audience and I actually sold much more I could ever had hoped for. So who needs publishers anymore?"

Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source is a translation of an original Finnish publication in May 2005, 'Avoin Elämä: Näin toimii Open Source'. In Finland it was the first book ever published online for free and with an Open Source style Creative Commons license. Talouselämä, Finland's main financial magazine, aptly gave it the recommendation: "It is certainly a business book well worth its price."

Open Life too is available online from the books website at www.openlife.cc

About the Author

Henrik Ingo is 29 year old and lives in Espoo, Finland. While working for a training company called Tieturi he taught a multitude of Internet and Open Source related programming languages. He has also researched e-learning at Helsinki University of Technology. Today he works as a software designer for Sesca Technologies. Though Sesca's headquarters are in Pietarsaari, Henrik works at the Helsinki office.

Henrik first came in thouch with Linux in 1996, when working as trainee for an internet service provider. A year earlier he had first used the internet, using IRC and email without knowing what it was.

Avoin Elämä: Näin toimii Open Source was Henrik's first book.

About the book

ISBN 978-1-84728-611-6

First published 2005 in Finnish as Avoin Elämä: Näin toimii Open Source
This first English language edition published 2006 by Lulu.com
English translation: Sara Torvalds
Editor, English edition: Helen Wire
(cc) 2006 Henrik Ingo

With the exception of the Epilogue, and the cover image, the contents of this book have been released into the public domain. You are therefore free to copy and distribute it either wholly or partially as is or in an altered form.
This book can be read or copied from the Internet address: https://www.openlife.cc

For more information

Henrik Ingo
henrik.ingo [at] openlife.cc
+358 40 5697354

Open Life press kit: pictures, author bio, press releases
https://openlife.cc/press