Rating: 
Summary: Great Subject, Average Book
Review: As a huge fan of Linus Torvalds and The Linux Revolution, I waited in great anticipation for this book. Although at face value the book is pretty good, I expected a lot more. We got to hear some things on Linus' world view and his background, but we would've been better rewarded with a more in depth analysis of the state of the wired and computer world, and how computing can be improved through deep proliferation of Linux. A case needs to be made for Linux on the desktop. Otherwise, Linux will be relegated to the server market too much, and The Revolution will never get televised for mass market appeal and conversion. I truly believe Linux is the best and most meaningful OS today for a variety of technical, conceptual, and professional reasons, and Torvalds would be well advised to step outside his comfort zone and be slightly more self promoting to the mass market. Indeed, some of Gates' success is based on shameless self promotion and some excellent books that educated and informed the public. You have to fight fire with fire beyond the silo of the Tech/IS crowd. If you want to read a great book on Open Source, read Eric Raymond's visionary The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Raymond isn't as wildly anti-establishment and eccentric as GNU and UNIX guru Richard Stallman, and he's not as self effacing as Torvalds.
Rating: 
Summary: If your geeky and you know it.... read this book
Review: As a programmer and an ubergeek I was really looking forward to this book, and in a lot of ways, it wasn't disapointing. This book is a fusion of several elements, Linus talking about his childhood, Linus talking about creating Linux, Linus + David Diamond talking about Linus's daily life, and finally, a few words of insight on the world of programming, and technology The first 50 pages or so describe Linus as a kid. I have never seen anyone describe what its like to grow up a geek so succinctly and humorously. An ubergeek reading this will have a fit of nostalgia when he/she reads about Linus's mom saying "I always worried how he was going to meet nice girls like that" or "Linus was a fairly easy kid to raise, just give him a dark room, and a computer, and throw in some dry pasta every now and then and he'll be happy". This section is also likely to appeal to people trying to UNDERSTAND us geeks. The next 100 or so pages are a description of the history of Linux. This section comes with an appropriate warning: moderately geeky language until page 130". The authors are correct in assuming that you may need to be a geek to understand and appreciate this part of the book. For programmers, this section is insightful, and even inspiring. By far the silliest part of the book comes next, as David Diamond describes his meetings with Linus. Linus is portrayed as eccentric, and here we learn of the programmer and the journalists frequent trips to the spa et al. Interesting but kinda dumb. Definitely the best part of this book is the end, where Linus begins to tell us his opinions on open-source, Intellectual Property, etc. Although I often disagreed with Linus, his opinions were well thought out and interesting. In conclusion this book is clever, funny, and informative, a must read for geeks, or geek-wannabe's. My only problem: Linus's writing is choppy and often grammatically incorrect, but I can't blame Linus for this one as English is a second language to him.
Rating: 
Summary: Expecting much better
Review: First problem Mr. Torvalds co-wrote the book - should've left it to the professionals. Though one gets the impression from the book that he's such a control freak that wasn't an option. Considering his ego I'm suprised the book wasn't longer. A lot of drivel, negative comments about industry people he's met, ego stroking, self-important blather. He's cashed out, made his millions and good for him - think he'd acknowledge the Free Software Foundation/GNU etc. instead of critizing them. Nothing wrong with being a sell-out, just don't deny it and minimize the contributions others made to your success.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting and annoying at the same time
Review: Frankly speaking, I'm usually too lazy for writing reviews.
Because I was so disappointed by the book, I write one now. The good aspect of the book is that one gets a glimpse of what kind of guy Linus Torvalds is. That's quite interesting - since his regarded as being a kind of superstar.
The bad aspect (for me) is that this guy's arrogance and overestimation of his merits is so annoying. The book delivers what you might expect in a biography about a 34 year old operating-system-programming-know-it-all ... but not more.
Rating:
Summary: sophomoric self indulgence
Review: I certainly hope that Linus Torvalds and David Diamond had fun writing Just for Fun. They did such a poor job of it that I was not able to enjoy reading it. The first thing that bothered me about the book was the poor proofreading and editing. The book switches between second person and first person. There does not seem to be any reason for this in the narrative. I think it is just sloppiness. There are also a number of fairly obvious typos. You would think they could have hired a proof reader who knew that ls is a UNIX command. Another problem with the book is that it really offers little new information about Torvalds or Linux. Linus has given many interviews over the last few years as Linux has become popular. Anyone who has read a few of those interviews will know most everything in this book. Linus has accomplished something quite remarkable with the creation of his operating system kernel, and with the popularity he has brought to the open source movement. Unfortunately Just for Fun offers no insight into why Torvalds was the person who was able to do this. What makes Linus Torvalds so special? After reading this book that question remains unanswered. This book would be of value to a reader who is interested in Linux and the open source movement, but some how had not read anything about it up to now. For any one other than that reader this exercise in sophomoric self indulgence is a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Good capuccino, excellent operating system
Review: I had the recent pleasure of meeting Linus Torvalds and he does indeed make a mean capuccino. In fact he's a pretty shy, unassuming host. Hard to get him to talk unless you ask him about some of the latest kernel bugs. Doesn't really understand or care too much about what's going on in "user space." You wouldn't think he's the guy who would lead an open source revolution. And that's precisely why he is able to do it. You're probably already familiar with his story: Nice guy Finnish college student works in his closet sized apartment for a few years, writes an operating system, gives it away free and in the process gets more market share than Unix, Macintosh and OS/2 combined. But make no mistakes, Linus is not some kind of rabid anti-commercial software communist. He's a just a very talented and diligent programmer who is doing this for fun. Not for money, not for fame. Ok, maybe a bit of fame. And a few stuffed penguins. And a BMW. Nonetheless, it's an interesting story and in many ways a nice contrast with the usual egotistical biographies of Silicon Valley technologists.
Rating:
Summary: More details needed. Expected more, but interesting.
Review: I picked this up to read during a 10-hour plane ride. Having been using both Linux and FreeBSD for my business, this book struck my interest.
I'm not really even sure what this book is supposed to be or who the intended audience is. The book is dumbed down and details are skimmed over, which is frustrating for any Linux user. Only a Linux user would want to read this anyway and they would want a technical book.
Most of the book is written by Linus. While the history of his life is interesting, the lack of details and technical know-how is left out. I was hoping for more under-the-hood details and OS vs OS discussion. Instead of the "my way is better", I was hoping for more of a discussion on architecture views. Clearly, other OS authors don't think they are writing anything less than their best either.
Sadly, Linus seems to have lost the passion for his OS. I was expecting an uplifting sales pitch or a "we will do anything in our power to make Linux the best it can be". Instead you are faced with him stating that he doesn't know what the future will bring. That is a bit scary coming from the one that controls the kernel. Money has clearly gone to his head. There is nothing wrong with money, just the attitude that usually comes along with it.
Linus seems to use this book as a means for venting. Bashing everything to other operating systems (normally with no argument to back it up) to root beer. Hey, I like root beer! The venting includes some big names in the industry some of whom he walked out on.
Other important open source contributors and biggest names in Linux development are left out. The open source movement happened because a lot of people worked together, not just on this project but many other important ones such as X, Perl, Apache, KDE, Gnome, etc, etc.
The co-author really makes the book frustrating. Extra chapters a sprinkled in with recaps of visits with Linus. He follows him around like a lost puppy and observes him as a comic book hero. Instead of adding anything to the story of Linux, he only sheds light on visits, observations, and family details. To make matters worse, the guy uses a MAC. Why is this guy writing the book?
Highlights include a bit more background on Linus's personal life, a rapidly skipped-over timeline of Linux OS, his Finnish-to-America transition, some details on Java, and some interesting takes on the open-source movement.
Frustrations include Linus's constant complaining, lack of technical detail, poor co-author that doesn't use or know anything about Linux, unnecessary opinions about the meaning of life among other things, and lack of passion for Linux.
This book could have been so much better, but it is still worth reading if these topics interest you.
Linus, you are a good guy but you aren't my hero.
Rating:
Summary: It's OK, but nothing new
Review: I read the excellent "Rebel Code" and thought that reading "Just for Fun" would be a nice idea, to know more about Linux and its author through his own words. The problem is that Linus and the journalist who helped him failed to make the book interesting, so it becomes a sequence of chapters like "yeah I needed a new driver for my modem, so...well I did it" In one page he's doing Linux version 0.01 alone in his bedroom in Helsinki, 15 pages later he's talking about having 10 million users, and leaves no clue HOW it happened, or who was involved (guys like Dave Miller and Alan Cox, so important to the Linux community, didn't get one single mention) So if you want to really understand not only WHAT happened but HOW it happened, I recommend "Rebel Code" instead. And it covers not only Linux, but the whole open-source movement.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful!
Review: In Just for Fun, Linus Torvalds, the Finnish creator of the Linux operating system, mixes his personal story, told in both narrative and e-mail dispatches, with the saga of his development of the Linux operating system. Torvalds' personal account makes the book fascinating. He began as a self-proclaimed nerd (and even a jerk) who labored to create an operating system in his garage and eventually became the head of the world's largest open source project. By requiring buyers and licensees to keep the Linux source code open, Torvalds assures the continued technological evolution of his system. The episodic nature of the book makes it choppy, the technical descriptions are hard for the uninitiated to track and co-writer David Diamond's digressions are revealing about Torvalds' personal life, but a little disruptive. Even so, we recommend this entertaining, interesting book that may even lead you to consider using Linux on your computer, whether or not you are another self-proclaimed computer nerd.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting reading for geeky (and not so geeky) folks
Review: Linus Torvalds, as most geeks and many non-geeks know, is the person behind Linux, the operating system. This book provides a soap box for Linus to talk about what has driven him (computers, programming) towards his goal. He did not intend to create a phenomenal operating system; rather, he was content adding features to his terminal emulator until the fine day that it started to grow into an operating system. In the early '90's I remember reading a posting from him on the MINIX bulletin board; the posting urged readers to download and install Linux, his new operating system based on Unix (I never quite got down to doing that, but I did follow his work including his visit to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where I worked during the early-mid 90's.) The book is an interesting read for me since I readily subscribe to the open/free software, extreme programming, open source movement. Reading about Linus' travails with Andrew Tannenbaum (an extremely well known Computer Science personality) and their exchange on the merits of micro-kernel vs. macro- kernel architectures is very interesting. I am not sure non-computer literate folks (non-geeks) would find this as interesting. What they will find interesting is Linus' philosophy that the world constantly moves towards entertainment with a short detour through survival and forming of societies. Case in point: industrial revolution started as a means for humans to survive in a dangerous planet, evolved into humans forming societies to channel it and has now morphed into a quest for entertainment. Computers are no different -- started off as few people depending on them for their survival (the 'anointed ones' behind glass windows), evolved into the formation of soceities (bulletin boards, newsgroups, chat rooms) and are now used for entertainment. Maybe he has something there.
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