After the Software Wars

Book excerpt: 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.) Human knowledge increasingly exists in digital form, so building new and better models requires the software to be improved. People can only share ideas when they also share the software to display and modify them. It is the expanded use of free software that will allow a greater ability for people to work together and increase the pace of progress. This book will demonstrate that a system where anyone can edit, share, and review the body of work will lead not just to something that works, but eventually to the best that the world can achieve! With better cooperation among our scientists, robot-driven cars is just one of the many inventions that will arrive -- pervasive robotics, artificial intelligence, and much faster progress in biology, all of which rely heavily on software. - Publisher.