After the Software Wars
By: Keith Curtis
Publisher: keithcu press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Language: eng
Format: Paperback; E-book
Number of pages: 305
ISBN-13: 9780578011899
Copyright date: 2009
Description: 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.
Notes: also published as downloadable PDF
Table of contents: label: Free Software Battle
pagenum: 1; title: Free Software Army
pagenum: 3; title: iBio
pagenum: 6; label: Glossary
pagenum: 9; label: Wikipedia
pagenum: 10; label: Linux
pagenum: 16; title: Distributed Development
pagenum: 20; title: Linux Kernel Superiority
pagenum: 24; title: The Feature Race
pagenum: 35; title: Linux is Inexorably Winning
pagenum: 38; title: Charging for an OS
pagenum: 39; title: Free Software Only Costs PCs
pagenum: 42; title: A Free Operating System
pagenum: 43; title: Linux Distributions
pagenum: 49; label: AI and Google
pagenum: 53; title: Deep Blue has been Deep-Sixed
pagenum: 53; title: DARPA Grand Challenge
pagenum: 54; title: Software and the Singularity
pagenum: 59; title: Google
pagenum: 61; title: Conclusion
pagenum: 69; label: Free Software
pagenum: 71; title: Software as a Science
pagenum: 72; title: Definition of Free Software
pagenum: 75; title: Copyleft and Capitalism
pagenum: 76; title: Is Copyleft a Requirement for Free Software?
pagenum: 78; title: Why write free software?
pagenum: 79; title: Should all Ideas be Free?
pagenum: 90; title: Pride of Ownership
pagenum: 91; title: Where Does Vision Fit In?
pagenum: 92; title: Governments and Free Software
pagenum: 93; title: Should all Software be GPL?
pagenum: 95; title: Microsoft's Responses to Free Software
pagenum: 96; title: Just a Stab
pagenum: 98; label: Patents & Copyright
pagenum: 100; title: Software is math
pagenum: 104; title: Software is big
pagenum: 106; title: Software is a fast-moving industry
pagenum: 107; title: Copyright provides sufficient protection
pagenum: 107; title: Conclusion
pagenum: 108; title: Biotechnology Patents
pagenum: 109; title: Openness in Health Care
pagenum: 113; title: The Scope of Copyright
pagenum: 115; title: Length of Copyright
pagenum: 115; title: Fair Use
pagenum: 117; title: Digital Rights Management (DRM)
pagenum: 118; title: Music versus Drivers
pagenum: 122; label: Tools
pagenum: 124; title: Brief History of Programming
pagenum: 126; title: Lisp and Garbage Collection
pagenum: 130; title: Reliability
pagenum: 133; title: Portability
pagenum: 141; title: Efficiency
pagenum: 144; title: Maintainability
pagenum: 148; title: Functionality and Usability
pagenum: 150; title: Conclusion
pagenum: 151; label: The Java Mess
pagenum: 153; title: Sun locked up the code
pagenum: 155; title: Sun obsessed over specs
pagenum: 157; title: Sun locked up the design
pagenum: 159; title: Sun fragmented Java
pagenum: 160; title: Sun sued Microsoft
pagenum: 161; title: Java as GPL from Day 0
pagenum: 161; title: Pouring Java down the drain
pagenum: 163; title: Mono and Python
pagenum: 164; title: Let's Start Today
pagenum: 168; label: The OS Battle
pagenum: 170; title: IBM
pagenum: 171; title: Red Hat
pagenum: 173; title: Novell
pagenum: 175; title: Debian
pagenum: 176; title: Ubuntu
pagenum: 180; title: Should Ubuntu Have Been Created?
pagenum: 183; title: One Linux Distro?
pagenum: 188; title: Apple
pagenum: 191; title: Windows Vista
pagenum: 202; label: Challenges for Free Software
pagenum: 206; title: More Free Software
pagenum: 207; title: Cash Donations
pagenum: 208; title: Devices
pagenum: 210; title: Reverse Engineering
pagenum: 212; title: PC Hardware
pagenum: 213; title: Fix the F'ing Hardware Bugs!
pagenum: 215; title: Metrics
pagenum: 216; title: Volunteers Leading Volunteers
pagenum: 217; title: Must PC vendors ship Linux?
pagenum: 218; title: The Desktop
pagenum: 220; title: Approachability
pagenum: 221; title: Monoculture
pagenum: 224; title: Linux Dev Tools
pagenum: 226; title: Backward Compatibility
pagenum: 227; label: Standards & Web
pagenum: 229; title: Digital Images
pagenum: 230; title: Digital Audio
pagenum: 230; title: The Next-Gen DVD Mess
pagenum: 231; title: MS's Support of Standards
pagenum: 233; title: OpenDocument Format (ODF)
pagenum: 235; title: Web
pagenum: 241; label: Da Future
pagenum: 247; title: Phase II of Bill Gates' Career
pagenum: 247; title: Space, or How Man Got His Groove Back
pagenum: 250; title: The Space Elevator
pagenum: 255; title: 21st Century Renaissance
pagenum: 267; title: Warning Signs From the Future
pagenum: 269; label: Afterword
pagenum: 271; title: US v. Microsoft
pagenum: 271; title: Microsoft as a GPL Software Company
pagenum: 273; title: The Outside World
pagenum: 276; label: How to try Linux
pagenum: 296; label: Dedication
pagenum: 297; title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: 297