I have been reading through this book, as each chapter is separate to all the others. It is, overall, a quality work, but some chapters definitely stand above others. On the downside, there is little cohesion between the chapters and, while some themes run throughout the course of the book, do not expect some clear takeaway at the end.
I am only about a quarter of the way through the book, but thus far I would have to say the chapters on BerkeleyDB and Eclipse were the most interesting, both containing a lot of history and insight into how the projects changed over time. The chapters on Audacity, Bash, and CMake were all pretty good, but I did not find them as enlightening.
I guess that means, thus far, the book is about a third of each: very interesting, modestly interesting, and mediocre. Not too bad considering each chapter is written by different individuals.
