SoftwareWars

Overview

First Sentences

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.)

Translation

Here is a test document to time how long it will take to translate, and give an idea of some wording: File:TranslationTest2.odt

These are the languages that are lined up for translation right now: French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian

Trying Linux

There are several ways to go about this:

• Boot to a Linux "Live CD" which runs Linux off the CD-ROM. It takes a while to load code the first time, but it runs at full speed once it is in memory. However, booting to a CD-ROM is a hassle, so I don't recommend it.
• Inside a virtual machine

Install VirtualBox binaries [1]

Download Ubuntu "Alternate" CD ISO file. (It is a text mode installer which is faster and more reliable and more powerful) I386: [2], AMD64: [3]

Create a Virtual Machine inside VirtualBox (1 gig RAM, 10 Gig partition is plenty. Allocating all space up front is faster because if your virtual partition gets fragmented, it will run very slowly.)

Mount the ISO file to the virtual machine

Boot Virtual machine.

Go through setup process

• Dual boot

• Wipe the disk!