Nantz states in his introduction to Chapter 12, ".Net Open Source code is not just some ideal; it is real and useable today." A well written and informitive book covering the intergration of Open Source and .NET tools and programming philosophy. Subjects covered are licenses and standards, the importance of the .NET CLR and its application in Open Source applications like Mono, which seek to blend .NET/Open Source applications.
Nantz also stresses throughout the text the importance of the C# language in Open Source development and testing, testing, testing using various Open Source/.NET tools. A large portion of the book examines build tools like NAnt, XML and C# documentation, the use of NUnit testing and other test tools. Other areas Nantz looks at are application logging, integration with ASP.NET, databases like MSDE and MySQL, and web development.
There are lots of code examples (mostly written in C#) which make Nantz's statements triable, provable, and useable. The book comes with a CD full of code listings, source code, examples, and the tools mentioned so the reader can try the tools (with MS or Unix/Linux OS's) and code for him or her self. Out of 480+ pages Nantz devotes over 100 pages to references like NAnt tasks, mkisofs, Log4NET Appender configurations and security issues. This is a valuable text for those interested in Open Source/.NET applications.
I would recommend this book if for nothing more than getting one's feet wet with the many OS/.NET possibilities available for today's programmers .