Tom Adelstein is an American author, journalist, graphic artist, musician, and businessman. Adelstein was born in Dallas, Texas, attended Hillcrest High School the University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University's Cox School Business for post-graduate studies in Accounting. At an early age, he worked as a studio musician, songwriter, producer, and performer. His last and final major musical release by Morrhythm Records came in 1992. Adelstein entered the business world and became a Certified Public Accountant in 1975. His first book, How to Read, Analyze and Select Private Real Estate Offerings was written for the financial community and went into wide distribution for its emphasis on due diligence. He is also a co-author of several additional books, the most recent of which became an international best seller in 2007 published in 14 languages including Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, French, Turkish, German and Croatian. Adelstein is also a noted journalist having written and published over 500 articles for magazines and periodicals on-line and in print. He took an active role in the adoption of Open Source standards in government. Adelstein began the advocacy group, Government Forge, that initiated legislation for Open Source Software in Texas including Senate Bill 1579 filed in November 2002 and pressed for the Global Justice Data Model and a broad-based Amber Alert Sharing System. He is considered a prominent figure in the adoption of the Internet operating system and was named one of the world's 20 global Linux Luminaries. - amazon.com