Saturday, January 23, 2010

The Software Conspiracy, downloadable edition


I was going over my bookshelves and stumbled on a book I read some 10 years ago, named "The Software Conspiracy". The title pretty much says it all. Back then, I had just received by B.Sc. and was starting a career as a Unix admin; some thought I was crazy of not following the same path as others of that era which became part of an army of MCSEs. The fact is, I've always been very critical of the software industry, and back in these days of Microsoft in particular. UNIX just plain worked.
I still disklike a lot of "enterprise" software titles. However, I think software is actually better, for two reasons. First, it updates more easily, and unattendingly. Secondly, the move towards appliances, be it a smartphone or a DVD player, increased the quality of software overall as when an appliance doesn't work, you send it back.
I just found out the book was released for free in .pdf in 2005. It's a fascinating read.
O.

No comments: