O'Reilly Media
Encyclopedia
O'Reilly Media is an American media
company established by Tim O'Reilly
that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics. Their distinctive brand features a woodcut
of an animal on many of their book covers.
, based in the Cambridge, Massachusetts
area. In 1984, it began to retain publishing rights on manuals created for Unix
vendors. A few 70-page "Nutshell Handbooks" were well-received, but the focus remained on the consulting business until 1988. After a conference displaying O'Reilly's preliminary Xlib
manuals attracted significant attention, the company began increasing production of manuals and books
In 1992, O'Reilly Media published one of the first popular books about the Internet
, Ed Krol
's Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
. O'Reilly Media also created the first web portal
, the Global Network Navigator
("GNN") in 1993; it was sold to AOL
in 1995, one of the first large transactions of the dot-com bubble
.
O'Reilly launched a Perl Conference to raise the profile of the Perl
programming language. Many of the company's other software bestsellers were also on topics that were off the radar of the commercial software industry. In 1998, O'Reilly invited many of the leaders of software projects to a meeting. Originally called the freeware
summit, the meeting became known as the Open Source Summit. The O'Reilly Open Source Convention
(which includes the Perl conference) is now one of O'Reilly's flagship events. Other key events include the Emerging Technology Conference
and FOO Camp
.
Besides publishing, the company hosts many annual conferences, and provides online services for the open source community. Among such conferences are O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in California
and O'Reilly Open Source Convention
. Overall, O'Reilly describes its business not as publishing or conferences, but as "changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators." O'Reilly has also adopted Creative Commons's Founders Copyright
, which limits the maximum term of copyright protection to 28 years; it is much shorter than the current default duration of the monopoly in copyright law.
Dale Dougherty
, O'Reilly Media vice president, created the phrase "Web 2.0
" during a brainstorming session during 2003. This then became the name for the Web 2.0 Summit run by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb (formerly CMP Media). They registered Web 2.0 as a Service Mark "for arranging and conducting live events, namely trade shows, expositions, business conferences and educational conferences in various fields of computers and information technology."
In May 2006 CMP Media learned of an impending event called the "Web 2.0 Half day conference." Concerned over their obligation to take reasonable means to enforce their trade and service marks CMP sent a cease and desist
letter to the non-profit Irish organizers of the event. This attempt to restrict through legal mechanisms the use of the term was criticized by some. The legal issue was resolved by O'Reilly's apologizing for the early and aggressive involvement of attorneys, rather than simply calling the organizers, and allowing them to use the service mark for this single event.
O'Reilly's Web site prominently features the image from the cover of Learning the vi
Editor and Unix in a Nutshell, which is that of a tarsier
. The same image was later laser-etched into a laptop and adapted into a T-shirt sold by ThinkGeek
.
There are dozens of titles in the series, including:
There are also subdivisions within the line of "animal" books; for example, O'Reilly recently released a series of Cookbooks that provide prescriptive "recipes" for accomplishing specific tasks with a heavy emphasis on automation and scripting. Examples include the Perl Cookbook (ISBN 1-56592-243-3) and the Exchange Server Cookbook (ISBN 0-596-00717-5).
of some language or framework, and compress the description of the topics to a more high-level overview.
ing, Linux
, and several programming language
s. The series aims to be portable and allow the reader to find what they are looking for quickly. They are not meant as learning aids, nor as complete references.
audience, mostly relating to Microsoft operating systems
.
There is also a related "Fixing" Annoyances series of shorter books that offer simple solutions to everyday problems.
' for the good guys — innovators who explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on their own."
s, joke
s, nonstandard design and layout, and a conversational style to immerse the reader in a given topic.
Head First Labs is the official Web site for the series, with a forum for each book, code downloads, and sample chapters.
's Pogue Press, describes themselves as "the book that should have been in the box", providing a broad overview of the functionality of consumer technology.
nature.
Ed Krol
's 1992 text, Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
, was one of the first popular user guides to the Internet
.
The company also launched a travel
book series, "Traveler's Tales," and spun it out into a separate company. They also published books on health care
under the "Patient-Centered Guides" brand, currently inactive.
. The magazine contains articles on hardware hacking, as well as several technology-related do-it-yourself (DIY)
instructions for hobby
ists, and was later adapted into a television series by Twin Cities Public Television
.
In the fall of 2006, O'Reilly added a second magazine, Craft:
, with the tagline "Transforming Traditional Crafts." Craft magazine folded in 2009.
, which was later sold to AOL
. Around that time, they started two short-lived book lines: one of travel books (including Travelers' Tales Mexico) and one of general business books (including Love Your Job! and Building a Successful Software Business). They produced an audiotape version of the interview show Geek of the Week by Internet Talk Radio
. They sold Windows based software for six years, including the first commercially available Web server, Web Site.
O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures is a venture capital
fund focusing on software, cleantech and other emerging trends.
". This service makes the complete text of over 7,000 technical books available for online reading through a subscription. Safari Books Online includes books and video from Adobe Press, Alpha Books
, Cisco Press
, FT Press
, Microsoft Press
, New Riders Publishing, O'Reilly, Peachpit Press, Prentice Hall
, Prentice Hall PTR, Que
and Sams Publishing
.
O'Reilly formerly offered "SafariU" to educators to compile custom textbooks from individual chapters of books and from their own uploaded materials.
In the late 1990s, O'Reilly founded the O'Reilly Network, which grew to include sites such as:
In 2008 the company revised its online model and stopped publishing on several of its sites (including Codezoo and O'Reilly Connection).
The company also produces dev2dev (a WebLogic-oriented site) in association with BEA
and java.net (an open-source community for Java programmers) in association with Sun Microsystems
and CollabNet
.
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
company established by Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media and a supporter of the free software and open source movements.-Life and career:...
that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics. Their distinctive brand features a woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
of an animal on many of their book covers.
Company
The company began in 1978 as a private consulting firm doing technical writingTechnical writing
Technical writing, a form of technical communication, is a style of writing used in fields as diverse as computer hardware and software, engineering, chemistry, the aerospace industry, robotics, finance, consumer electronics, and biotechnology....
, based in the Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
area. In 1984, it began to retain publishing rights on manuals created for Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
vendors. A few 70-page "Nutshell Handbooks" were well-received, but the focus remained on the consulting business until 1988. After a conference displaying O'Reilly's preliminary Xlib
Xlib
Xlib is an X Window System protocol client library written in the C programming language. It contains functions for interacting with an X server. These functions allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the protocol...
manuals attracted significant attention, the company began increasing production of manuals and books
In 1992, O'Reilly Media published one of the first popular books about the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, Ed Krol
Ed Krol
Ed Krol was the network manager at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the former assistant director of Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
's Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, by Ed Krol, was published in September 1992 by O'Reilly. The Los Angeles Times notes that the Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog was the "first popular book about the medium" and "was later selected by the New York Public Library as one of the most...
. O'Reilly Media also created the first web portal
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
, the Global Network Navigator
Global Network Navigator
The Global Network Navigator was the first commercial web publicationand the first web site to offer clickable advertisements, now commonly referred to as "banner ads." The first such internet ad was sold by GNN to Heller Ehrman LLP....
("GNN") in 1993; it was sold to AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
in 1995, one of the first large transactions of the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
.
O'Reilly launched a Perl Conference to raise the profile of the Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
programming language. Many of the company's other software bestsellers were also on topics that were off the radar of the commercial software industry. In 1998, O'Reilly invited many of the leaders of software projects to a meeting. Originally called the freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
summit, the meeting became known as the Open Source Summit. The O'Reilly Open Source Convention
O'Reilly Open Source Convention
The O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...
(which includes the Perl conference) is now one of O'Reilly's flagship events. Other key events include the Emerging Technology Conference
Emerging Technology Conference
The O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference is O'Reilly Media's premier conference about the new technologies that are on the O'Reilly Radar. O'Reilly defines its core business not as books, conferences, or online publishing, though it does all three, but as "changing the world by spreading the...
and FOO Camp
Foo Camp
Foo Camp is an annual hacker event hosted by publisher O'Reilly Media. O'Reilly describes it as "the wiki of conferences", where the program is developed by the attendees at the event, using big whiteboard schedule templates that can be rewritten or overwritten by attendees to optimize the schedule...
.
Besides publishing, the company hosts many annual conferences, and provides online services for the open source community. Among such conferences are O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and O'Reilly Open Source Convention
O'Reilly Open Source Convention
The O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...
. Overall, O'Reilly describes its business not as publishing or conferences, but as "changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators." O'Reilly has also adopted Creative Commons's Founders Copyright
Copyright Act of 1790
The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War...
, which limits the maximum term of copyright protection to 28 years; it is much shorter than the current default duration of the monopoly in copyright law.
Dale Dougherty
Dale Dougherty
Dale Dougherty is one of the co-founders of O'Reilly Media. While not at the company in its earliest stages as a technical documentation consulting company, Dale was instrumental in the development of O'Reilly's publishing business, was the founder of GNN, the Global Network Navigator, the first...
, O'Reilly Media vice president, created the phrase "Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
" during a brainstorming session during 2003. This then became the name for the Web 2.0 Summit run by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb (formerly CMP Media). They registered Web 2.0 as a Service Mark "for arranging and conducting live events, namely trade shows, expositions, business conferences and educational conferences in various fields of computers and information technology."
In May 2006 CMP Media learned of an impending event called the "Web 2.0 Half day conference." Concerned over their obligation to take reasonable means to enforce their trade and service marks CMP sent a cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letter to the non-profit Irish organizers of the event. This attempt to restrict through legal mechanisms the use of the term was criticized by some. The legal issue was resolved by O'Reilly's apologizing for the early and aggressive involvement of attorneys, rather than simply calling the organizers, and allowing them to use the service mark for this single event.
Animal books
For many years the most typical O'Reilly books, the "animal books," have been designed as thorough guides for work with established technologies. The original animal design was developed by Edie Freedman because she thought that Unix program names sounded like "weird animals."O'Reilly's Web site prominently features the image from the cover of Learning the vi
Vi
vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...
Editor and Unix in a Nutshell, which is that of a tarsier
Tarsier
Tarsiers are haplorrhine primates of the genus Tarsius, a genus in the family Tarsiidae, which is itself the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes...
. The same image was later laser-etched into a laptop and adapted into a T-shirt sold by ThinkGeek
ThinkGeek
ThinkGeek is an American online retailer that caters to computer enthusiasts and other "geeky" social groups. Their merchandise includes clothing, electronic and scientific gadgets, unusual computer peripherals, office toys, pet toys, child toys, and caffeinated drinks and candy...
.
There are dozens of titles in the series, including:
- Learning the vi Editor (known as the tarsier book and the source of O'Reilly)
- Learning PerlLearning PerlLearning Perl, also known as the llama book, is a tutorial book for the Perl programming language, and is published by O'Reilly. It was authored solely by Randal L. Schwartz in its first edition . The second edition was coauthored with Tom Christiansen and the third edition was coauthored with...
(known as the llama book) - Programming PerlProgramming PerlProgramming Perl, ISBN 0-596-00027-8,best known as the Camel Book among programmers, is a book and ebook about writing programs using the Perl programming language, revised as several editions to reflect major language changes since Perl version 4. Editions have been co-written by the creator of...
(known as the camel book) - Mastering PerlMastering PerlMastering Perl, published in 2007 by O'Reilly , is the third book in their series of Perl tutorials, following Learning Perl and Intermediate Perl. The book is written by brian d foy....
- Information Architecture (known as the polar bear book)
- Learning PythonLearning PythonLearning Python is a tutorial book for the Python programming language, and is published by O'Reilly.- Editions :* First edition * Second edition...
In a Nutshell
The "In a Nutshell" series offers compact reference coverage of a technology. Often, a Nutshell book will contain all the commands available for a given technology, or a complete listing of an APIApplication programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
of some language or framework, and compress the description of the topics to a more high-level overview.
- Unix in a Nutshell (ISBN 1-56592-427-4)
- PC Hardware in a Nutshell (ISBN 1-56592-599-8)
- Linux in a Nutshell
- LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (ISBN 0-596-00528-8)
- C# 4.0 in a Nutshell
- C++ in a Nutshell
- Java in a Nutshell
- PHP in a Nutshell
- Perl in a Nutshell (ISBN 1-56592-286-7)
- Web Design in a Nutshell (ISBN 978-0596009878)
Cookbook
The "Cookbook" series aims to produce books that contain a general set of recipes for a particular technology. Each recipe contains a specific problem, a specific solution, and a discussion about how to apply the solution in a general sense. The Perl Cookbook set the standard and format for this series.- ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-52695-5)
- Apache Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-52994-9)
- Bash Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-52678-8)
- C++ Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-00761-4)
- CSS Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-15593-3)
- Facebook Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-51817-2)
- Java Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-00701-0)
- jQuery Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-15977-1)
- Perl CookbookPerl CookbookThe Perl Cookbook, ISBN 0-596-00313-7, is a book containing solutions to common short tasks in Perl. Each chapter covers a particular topic area and is divided into around a dozen recipes each on a particular problem...
(ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5) - PHP Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-10101-5)
- Python Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-00797-3)
- Regular Expressions Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-52068-7)
- Ruby Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-52369-5)
- SQL Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-00976-2)
- C# 3.0 Cookbook (ISBN 978-0-596-51610-9)
Pocket Guide and Pocket Reference
The "Pocket" series are small form factor books, typically less than a hundred pages, covering the very bare essentials of various subjects. Topics include podcastPodcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, and several programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s. The series aims to be portable and allow the reader to find what they are looking for quickly. They are not meant as learning aids, nor as complete references.
Annoyances
The Annoyances series offers "tips, secrets, and solutions" covering advanced topics for a geekGeek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...
audience, mostly relating to Microsoft operating systems
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
.
- Windows Vista Annoyances
- Windows XP Annoyances for Geeks, Second Edition
There is also a related "Fixing" Annoyances series of shorter books that offer simple solutions to everyday problems.
- Fixing Windows Access Annoyances
- Fixing Windows XP Annoyances
- PC Annoyances, Second Edition
Developer's Notebook
The "Developer's Notebook" series aims to mimic the lab notebooks of high school and college science classes, complete with scribbled marginal notes of important thoughts, points, and "gotchas". Describing itself as "all lab, no lecture", books in this series usually show specific tasks in detail. They illuminate how the tasks work, but do not attempt to provide a complete overview of design, theory, and implementation of a given technology.- JBoss: A Developer's Notebook
- Maven: A Developer's Notebook
Hacks
The "Hacks" series says it "reclaims the term 'hackingHacking
Hacking may refer to:* Computer hacking, including the following types of activity:** Hacker , activity within the computer programmer subculture** Hacker , to access computer networks, legally or otherwise...
' for the good guys — innovators who explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on their own."
- Linux Server Hacks (ISBN 0-596-00461-3)
- Google HacksGoogle HacksGoogle Hacks: Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching is a book of tips about Google, a popular Internet search engine, by Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest. The book was published by O'Reilly in February 2002 . It covers tips of all kinds, from usage hints for the novice just using Google, to advice...
(ISBN 0-596-00447-8) - eBay Hacks (ISBN 0-596-10068-X)
- Mind HacksMind HacksMind Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Using Your Brain is a book using cognitive neuroscience to present experiments, tricks, and tips related to aspects of the brain by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb. The book was published by O'Reilly in November 2004 as part of the O'Reilly Hacks series...
(ISBN 978-0-596-00779-9) - Mind Performance HacksMind Performance HacksMind Performance Hacks: Tips and Tools for Overclocking Your Brain is a self help book using psychology and mnemonic techniques to improve thinking skills such as memory, creativity, mental math, and other cognitive abilities by Ron Hale-Evans, who wrote and researched approximately 80% of the book...
(ISBN 978-0-596-10153-4) - Ubuntu HacksUbuntu HacksUbuntu Hacks: Tips & Tools for Exploring, Using, and Tuning Linux is a book of tips about Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution. The book was published by O'Reilly Media in June 2006 as part of the O'Reilly Hacks series.- External links :**...
(ISBN 0-596-52720-9) - (Many other books in the Hacks series)
Head First
The Head First series stresses a reader-involving combination of puzzlePuzzle
A puzzle is a problem or enigma that tests the ingenuity of the solver. In a basic puzzle, one is intended to put together pieces in a logical way in order to come up with the desired solution...
s, joke
Joke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...
s, nonstandard design and layout, and a conversational style to immerse the reader in a given topic.
Head First Labs is the official Web site for the series, with a forum for each book, code downloads, and sample chapters.
- Head First Software Development (ISBN 0-596-52735-7)
- Head First PMP (ISBN 0-596-10234-8)
- Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (ISBN 0-596-00867-8)
- Head Rush Ajax (ISBN 0-596-10225-9)
- Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (ISBN 0-596-10197-X)
- Head First Java (ISBN 0-596-00920-8)
- Head First Design Patterns (ISBN 0-596-00712-4)
- Head First Statistics (ISBN 0-596-52758-6)
- Head First Python (ISBN 1-4493-8268-1)
- Head First Servlets & JSP (ISBN: 978-0-596-51668-0)
- Head First JavaScript (ISBN-10: 0-596-52774-8, ISBN-13: 978-0-596-52774-7)
Missing Manual
The "Missing Manual" series, produced with David PogueDavid Pogue
David Welch Pogue is an American technology writer, technology columnist and commentator. He is a personal technology columnist for the New York Times, an Emmy-winning tech correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, weekly tech correspondent for CNBC, and a columnist for Scientific American...
's Pogue Press, describes themselves as "the book that should have been in the box", providing a broad overview of the functionality of consumer technology.
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue (2009) ISBN 978-0-596-15328-1
- Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue (2005) ISBN 978-0-596-00941-0
- Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, by John Broughton (2008) ISBN 978-0-596-51516-4
- iPod: The Missing Manual, by J D Biersdorfer J.D. ISBN 978-0-596-52978-9
- iPhone: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue (2010) ISBN 978-1-449-39365-6
Other books
O'Reilly produces books that are not in any particular series, especially when the title is of a manifestoManifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
nature.
- The Cathedral and the BazaarThe Cathedral and the BazaarThe Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. It examines the struggle between top-down and bottom-up design...
(ISBN 1-56592-724-9) (Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow) - Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free SoftwareFree as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free SoftwareFree as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software is a free book licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License about the life of Richard Stallman, written by Sam Williams and published by O'Reilly Media on March 1, 2002.Williams conducted several interviews with Stallman during...
(ISBN 0-596-00287-4)
Ed Krol
Ed Krol
Ed Krol was the network manager at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the former assistant director of Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
's 1992 text, Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog
The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, by Ed Krol, was published in September 1992 by O'Reilly. The Los Angeles Times notes that the Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog was the "first popular book about the medium" and "was later selected by the New York Public Library as one of the most...
, was one of the first popular user guides to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
The company also launched a travel
Travel
Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
book series, "Traveler's Tales," and spun it out into a separate company. They also published books on health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
under the "Patient-Centered Guides" brand, currently inactive.
Conferences
O'Reilly began its conference division in 1997. Today, the company offers over one dozen conferences:- O'Reilly Open Source ConventionO'Reilly Open Source ConventionThe O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...
- O'Reilly Emerging Technology ConferenceEmerging Technology ConferenceThe O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference is O'Reilly Media's premier conference about the new technologies that are on the O'Reilly Radar. O'Reilly defines its core business not as books, conferences, or online publishing, though it does all three, but as "changing the world by spreading the...
- Web 2.0 SummitWeb 2.0 SummitThe Web 2.0 Summit is an annual event, held in San Francisco, California, featuring discussions about the World Wide Web. The event was started in 2004 by Tim O'Reilly, who is also widely credited with coining the term "Web 2.0"...
(co-produced with TechWeb) - Web 2.0 Expo (co-produced with TechWeb)
- MySQL Conference and Expo (co-presented by MySQL ABMySQL ABMySQL AB was a software company. MySQL AB is the creator of MySQL, a relational database management system, as well as related products such as MySQL Cluster...
, until 2008, now by Sun MicrosystemsSun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
since 2009) - Tools of Change for Publishing
- RailsConf (co-presented by Ruby CentralRuby CentralRuby Central, Inc., is a non-profit organization based in the United States, dedicated to support and advocacy for the Ruby programming language....
) - Where 2.0
- Found
- Velocity (Web Performance & Operations)
- Money:Tech
- Gov 2.0 Expo and Gov 2.0 SummitGov 2.0 Summitis an event created and hosted by Tim O'Reilly and TechWeb. The first conference was held in Washington, DC on September 8–10, 2009 and included two distinct sessions, the Gov 2.0 Expo and the Summit....
(co-produced with TechWeb)
Magazines
Since 2005, O'Reilly has published a quarterly magazine known as Make: technology on your timeMake (magazine)
Make is an American quarterly magazine published by O'Reilly Media which focuses on do it yourself and/or DIWO projects involving computers, electronics, robotics, metalworking, woodworking and other disciplines...
. The magazine contains articles on hardware hacking, as well as several technology-related do-it-yourself (DIY)
Do it yourself
Do it yourself is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals...
instructions for hobby
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
ists, and was later adapted into a television series by Twin Cities Public Television
Twin Cities Public Television
Twin Cities Public Television is a non-profit organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that operates the Twin Cities' two Public Broadcasting Service member Public television stations, KTCA-TV and KTCI-TV...
.
In the fall of 2006, O'Reilly added a second magazine, Craft:
Craft (magazine)
Craft: was a quarterly magazine published by O'Reilly Media which focused on do it yourself projects involving knitting, sewing, jewelry, metalworking, woodworking and other disciplines...
, with the tagline "Transforming Traditional Crafts." Craft magazine folded in 2009.
Ventures
Over the years O'Reilly tried many other types of products. In 1993, they launched one of the first Web-based resources, Global Network NavigatorGlobal Network Navigator
The Global Network Navigator was the first commercial web publicationand the first web site to offer clickable advertisements, now commonly referred to as "banner ads." The first such internet ad was sold by GNN to Heller Ehrman LLP....
, which was later sold to AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
. Around that time, they started two short-lived book lines: one of travel books (including Travelers' Tales Mexico) and one of general business books (including Love Your Job! and Building a Successful Software Business). They produced an audiotape version of the interview show Geek of the Week by Internet Talk Radio
Internet Talk Radio
Internet talk radio is an audio broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting radio shows on the internet is usually preferred to webcasting since it is not transmitted broadly through wireless means. It mainly works by Internet radio transmissions...
. They sold Windows based software for six years, including the first commercially available Web server, Web Site.
O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures is a venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
fund focusing on software, cleantech and other emerging trends.
Online resources
O'Reilly formed a partnership with Pearson Publishing to offer "Safari Books OnlineSafari Books Online
Safari Books Online LLC is a digital library founded in July 2001 and headquartered in Sebastopol, CA with offices in Boston, MA and San Francisco, CA...
". This service makes the complete text of over 7,000 technical books available for online reading through a subscription. Safari Books Online includes books and video from Adobe Press, Alpha Books
Alpha Books
Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group, is an American publisher best known for their Complete Idiot's Guides series. It began as a division of Macmillan. Pearson Education acquired Macmillan General Reference from Simon & Schuster in 1999...
, Cisco Press
Cisco Press
Cisco Press is a publishing alliance between Cisco Systems and the Pearson Education division of Pearson PLC. Cisco Press distributes its titles through traditional resellers as well as through the Safari Books Online e-reference service.Cisco Press is the Cisco Systems authorized book publisher...
, FT Press
FT Press
FT Press , the book publishing imprint related to the Financial Times newspaper, creates books in the areas of General Business, Finance and Investing, Sales and Marketing, Leadership, Management and Strategy, Human Resources, and Global Business. FT Press is the publishing partner for Wharton...
, Microsoft Press
Microsoft Press
Microsoft Press is the publishing arm of Microsoft, usually releasing books dealing with various current Microsoft technologies. Microsoft Press' first introduced books were The Apple Macintosh Book by Cary Lu and Exploring the IBM PC by Peter Norton in 1984 at the West Coast Computer Faire...
, New Riders Publishing, O'Reilly, Peachpit Press, Prentice Hall
Prentice Hall
Prentice Hall is a major educational publisher. It is an imprint of Pearson Education, Inc., based in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6-12 and higher-education market. Prentice Hall distributes its technical titles through the Safari...
, Prentice Hall PTR, Que
QUE
QUE or que may refer to:* Quebec, as an informal abbreviation* Que Publishing, a company which first began as a publisher of technical computer software and hardware support books...
and Sams Publishing
SAMS Publishing
Sams Publishing is a subsidiary of Pearson Education dedicated to the publishing of technical training manuals.SAMS Publishing was founded in 1946 by Howard W. Sams, originally producing radio schematics and repair manuals. It was acquired by ITT in 1967. ITT sold its publishing division in 1985 to...
.
O'Reilly formerly offered "SafariU" to educators to compile custom textbooks from individual chapters of books and from their own uploaded materials.
In the late 1990s, O'Reilly founded the O'Reilly Network, which grew to include sites such as:
- LinuxDevCenter.com
- MacDevCenter.com
- WindowsDevCenter.com
- ONLamp.com
- O'Reilly Radar
In 2008 the company revised its online model and stopped publishing on several of its sites (including Codezoo and O'Reilly Connection).
The company also produces dev2dev (a WebLogic-oriented site) in association with BEA
BEA Systems
BEA Systems, Inc. specialized in enterprise infrastructure software products known as "middleware", which connect software applications to databases and was acquired by Oracle Corporation on April 29, 2008.- History :...
and java.net (an open-source community for Java programmers) in association with Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and CollabNet
CollabNet
CollabNet is a company that sells application lifecycle management software for distributed development teams engaged in both enterprise and open source development.-History:...
.
External links
- Safari Books Online
- Make magazine official Web site
- Conferences
- O'Reilly TOC Conference
- Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco
- RailsConf
- Web 2.0 Expo New York
- Internet Archive: Details: The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog. Open source books contributed by the community