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New book: After the Software Wars

Posted by keithcu on · 12 comments
Lulu; By Keith Curtis 		Mail this story
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I have just finished a new book about free software. Excerpt: Given the technology that's already available, we should have cars that drive us around, in absolute safety, while we lounge in the back and sip champagne. All we need is a video camera on the roof, plugged into a PC, right? We have all the necessary hardware, and have had it for years, but don't yet have robot-driven cars because we don't have the software. This book explains how we can build better software and all get our own high-tech chauffeur.

Here is the start:
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Given the technology that's already available, we should have cars that drive us around, in absolute safety, while we lounge in the back and sip champagne. All we need is a video camera on the roof, plugged into a PC, right? We have all the necessary hardware, and have had it for years, but don't yet have robot-driven cars because we don't have the software. This book explains how we can build better software and all get our own high-tech chauffeur.

The key to faster technological progress is the more widespread use of free software. Free versus proprietary (or non-free) software is similar to the divide between science and alchemy. Before science, there was alchemy, where people guarded their ideas because they wanted to corner the market on the means to convert lead into gold. The downside of this “strategy” is that everyone would have to learn for themselves that drinking mercury is a bad idea. The end of the Dark Ages arrived when man started to share advancements in math and science for others to use and improve upon. In fact, one way to look at history is to divide it between periods of progress and stagnation.

Computers are an advancement whose importance is comparable to the invention of the wheel or movable type. While computers and the Internet have already changed many aspects of our lives, we still live in the dark ages of computing because proprietary software is still the dominant model. One might say that the richest alchemist who ever lived is my former boss, Bill Gates. (Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are close behind.)
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The book talks about why free software is superior, implications for Google, the Java mess, patents and copyright, Vista, remaining challenges for free software, and many other things.

The book is available on Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/content/4964815


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Comments (12)

Heads up: Free copy

Sander_Marechal ·
Heads up folk,

The first 1000 PDF downloads are free.
keithcu Story submitter ·
Hi;

Part of the reason I wrote this book is that I wrote some blog postings that I submitted to lxer, and I got some interesting and encouraging feedback. Well, most of it was encouraging, but all of it was good ideas for me to think about ;-)

The work from those articles have been refined and put into this book.

I'd love to hear what y'all think!
Sander_Marechal ·
I will read it keithcu. Not sure when I will have finished it though as I'm a tad busy until the end of the year. I read the first 8-9 pages or so and it looked good.
keithcu Story submitter ·
No problem. BTW, it doesn't get going till Page 14 where I get into the Linux kernel, starting with this quote :-)

Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. —Linus Torvalds, 2003

I needed to put a bunch of intro text into the book even though for many readers it wouldn't be all that informative.
wizz33 ·
it is interesting
tracyanne ·
I've managed to skim through most of it, it looks very interesting, will have to sit down and do a solid read of it.
rijelkentaurus ·
Looking forward to it, thanks.

auto autos

mrbobeau ·
For a look at the challenges of creating a working, self-driving cars, check out Traffic : why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us) by Tom Vanderbilt. It's not the main focus of the book, but he does give mention to a couple of working prototypes and the complexity of the software needed to make them work safely.

Bob T
jezuch ·
DARPA has a competition about self-driving cars. There were two editions already, and one was in the desert and the other in a specially secured part of a city - because it might be quite destructive ;) Really, self-driving cars are like voting machines. I would NEVER trust a speeding ton of steel to a computer (at least not while they aren't intelligent and self-conscious... but that would be another can of worms).
gus3 ·
At this point, the self-driving car is kind of like going to the moon. The stated goal may or may not be advisable for "the common man," but we can't know the ancillary benefits until we actually do it.

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