Free Software For Busy People is a freely available electronic book written by Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli in 2005 to educate the public about Free/Libre Open Source Software(FLOSS). Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli is a Cambridge-educated physician and programmer who uses IT to improve healthcare.
His book is an introductory text for novices who are curious about free open source software but also contains many nuggets of useful information for all readers. Real world examples of people, governments, and corporations already using FLOSS are particularly enlightening. We are indeed in the midst of a significant cultural shift.
To help illustrate the practical value of FLOSS, six diverse characters are employed: Mrs. Shrub, Monsieur Braille, Dr. Digitalis, Mr. Salah Al-Din, Ms. Yates and Mr. Big; a teacher, a mayor, a general practitioner, a non-profit leader, an entrepreneur, and a CEO.
Each character has several tasks to complete and each does so using free software. While the characters are fictitious, the FLOSS solutions are very real.
Topics covered are document preparation, web design, mind mapping, games, creating presentations, clustering, task automation, spell-checking, security and more. FLOSS examples covered include Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Tux4Kids, the GIMP, MySQL, plus many others.
Saved towards the end is a chapter on the value of freedom and of free software. The next chapter covers how to give back to the open source movement. These chapters focus on the real value of FLOSS.
The book is a quick, easy read and highly recommended for all. An online, hyperlinked html version is available at http://www.freedomsoftware.info
