Book update and cover reveal

A few weeks ago the book went into tech review. Adaobi sent an early review version of the book-so-far to somewhere between 16-20 people. That feedback is rolling in and so far it’s priceless. Because the reviewers come from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, they’re each finding different ways I can improve the text to be helpful for more people. Yeah yeah, every author says their early readers are great, but mine really are.

So far the tech reviewers seem pleased with the book, saying things like, “It’s very engaging and in spite of having years of experience in this space I’m still enjoying reading it”, “…the writing is excellent and thoughtful. It’s clear that the author is drawing from years of experience”, and “…a brilliant tool to help C-level executives understanding how to make the most of open source”. It’s humbling to have people I respect saying stuff like this about my work.

With so many tech reviewers, it’s going to take a while for me to finish sorting through, thinking about, and making necessary changes to the book. We’re not letting that slow us down, though! Onward…to beta!

As of today we’re in the book version of a code freeze: the repository is locked while the team at Pragmatic prepares things to go into early release. Next week at this time—on October 11th, 2023—everyone will be able to buy the first ⅔ of the book and then receive regular updates as new and improved content is available, as well as receive the final version of the book once the layout and indexing people have completed their work at the end of the process.

It’s all exciting and terrifying, knowing everyone will finally be able to benefit from my months of work. I won’t have time to integrate all of the tech reviewer feedback by next Wednesday, but there’s no rush. It’ll get in there by the next beta release, which will also feature the first chapter (or maybe two!) of the final part of the book.

Also exciting but considerably less terrifying: the book finally has a cover, and y’all get to see it now before anyone else. Without further ado…

Isn’t it lovely[*]? It’ll look great sitting on your shelf next to Forge Your Future with Open Source, don’cha think? I do believe it will, yes indeed.

Anyway, that’s the latest big news. Look out for more information next week, when you can finally get your hands on the early edition of this new resource.

[*] A friend quipped, “Burning forks? How appropriate for FOSS…” 😏