When algorithms control the world

This article doesn't discuss Linux or FOSS, but perhaps it should. It sets up explaining the great importance of software to society and how it is becoming very complex and suggests that potentially the next major catastrophe will be associated with software gone mad.

[Quick update: A quick googling suggests this author has written about Linux before (named sounded slightly familiar - ?).]

Quoting:..the great importance of software to society and how it is becoming very complex and suggests that potentially the next major catastrophe will be associated with software gone mad.

There is another book of note that makes this point quite poignantly, besides that of Eli Pariser's 'The Filter Bubble' which Wakefield refers to in her BBC News piece; David Rice's 2008 book 'Geekonomics; The Real Cost of Insecure Software'. Online info on 'Geekonomics' found at http://www.geekonomicsbook.com/

Rice brings his specific discussion of FOSS primarily within Chapter 6; 'Open Source Software: Free, But at What Cost?' A reading of this chapter, unfortunately, casts some negative light on FOSS and the major players of the FOSS "movement" (e.g., RMS and Alan Cox).

Suffice it to say that Rice's book makes a thoughtful read in lieu of Wakefield's warnings.