Keith
Curtis
This
is the first book i have read on my Kindle; not actually the first
e-book i’ve read ~ that might have been Mendenhall’s about
ancient Israel, i don’t remember ~ but
all others have been done on the computer screen, whereas this one i
purposely saved, after i downloaded it months ago, as i was pretty
sure that at some point i’d be buying an e-book reader. So, this
review can serve to speak of the book and the reader.
Curtis
is interesting; he is an apostle in the gospel of free software,
converted like St. Paul from an enemy of it; in Curtis’s case he
was a Microsoft employee, but now urges Linux on the world, as the
way into a better future, powered by the ability of thousands of
volunteers who will scratch what itches ~ fix or improve what annoys
them. The main message that Curtis gives is not that Microsoft (or
any other entity which charges for software) is evil, nor that their
products are, of necessity, poor quality; rather it is that software
which is charged for because people are employed to make it cannot be
of such high quality, at least after a period of time, as that which
is freely available both to use and to be improved upon, because
people will improve it ~ not because they will be paid but because
they want it to be better for themselves. Thus free software takes
advantage of people’s own self-interest to improve and evolve. The
secondary example he uses to illustrate the process is that of
Wikipedia, which improves daily as readers make changes to something
they believe can be better expressed or more accurate or simply add
what had not previously existed. This perspective, at least as
Curtis gives it, is quite persuasive, to the point that i shall at
some point more than likely try Linux for myself, as i already use
free software (OpenOffice) daily, both at work and at home, it is not
too great a stretch to imagine migrating.
The
points at which i tended to lose interest were those at which he
moved from talking about free software to making points about
capitalism and space exploration, both of which he has beliefs on,
and neither of which he seems especially qualified to be listened to
on. This is a shame, because i enjoyed the book, other than at these
points. Still, one mustn't complain.
The
other point i need to address is the use of the Kindle to read this
e-book. I cannot at all remember where i got the PDF file from, but
i remember downloading it some months (or more) ago and keeping it
because it looked interesting and i imagined that at some point i
would obtain an e-book reader. I did not try reading it on the PC,
because i dislike PDF files to read, by and large, as they are
cumbersome and sitting upright at a desk is not, i find, a
particularly comfortable position. That was, as i recall, the sole
complaint i had about the prepublication PDF of Mendenhall's book..
I have to say, however, that reading on the Kindle was both
comfortable and pleasurable. I did quite a bit in bed, fully warm,
except for the hand holding the device, and that could be changed and
warmed up frequently enough for it not to be an issue.
There
is no doubt whatsoever that the electronic reader will not replace
physical books for me, nor is it likely that it will become even the
primary method of obtaining and keeping reading material. There is
too much invested emotionally in actual books for me to give them up;
i can quite easily see, though, that i and people of my generation
and perhaps the one after me could well be the last regular users of
paper books, as children being born now are quite likely to consider
us as we consider the monk with vellum ~ a relic of a previous age
and method.
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