What do you think?
Rate this book
Superdistribution: Objects As Property on the Electronic Frontier
This book answers one of the most perplexing questions of the information-age Now that object-oriented technologies ranging from programming languages to graphical user interfaces to the world wide web have made it feasible to manufacture objects made of bits, what does it mean to buy, sell and own them? Brad Cox has the "Superdistribution" a comprehensive yet controversial solution that allows software to flow freely, without resistance from copy protection or piracy. Computers vanish altogether, becoming just part of the plumbing through which people communicate, cooperate, and compete as members of a mature, global, electronically-connected society.
Superdistribution means giving up on copyright as the sole basis of electronic ownership and turning to useright instead. It means giving the bits away, but charging customers when they use them.
In this book, Cox discusses the information age economy in terms of objects made of bits and defined as property in tangible, intellectual and electronic domains; introduces superdistribution as a comprehensive yet controversial solution to the challenges of developing the information age economy; traces the cause of the software crisis to the lack of robust means for supporting electronic ownership and revenue collection within elaborate cooperative communities; and applies the concepts of interchangeable parts and inspection gauges - techniques pioneered during the industrial revolution - to today's challenge of software engineering on the electronic frontier.
Superdistribution means giving up on copyright as the sole basis of electronic ownership and turning to useright instead. It means giving the bits away, but charging customers when they use them.
In this book, Cox discusses the information age economy in terms of objects made of bits and defined as property in tangible, intellectual and electronic domains; introduces superdistribution as a comprehensive yet controversial solution to the challenges of developing the information age economy; traces the cause of the software crisis to the lack of robust means for supporting electronic ownership and revenue collection within elaborate cooperative communities; and applies the concepts of interchangeable parts and inspection gauges - techniques pioneered during the industrial revolution - to today's challenge of software engineering on the electronic frontier.
205 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1995
20 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 11, 2021
Abraham Simpson is asked "what is an object" and takes 200 pages to not carry the point.
This is Gonzo journalism's answer to the software industrial crisis.
This is Gonzo journalism's answer to the software industrial crisis.
January 19, 2023
A really interesting perspective on how software commercialization might play out in 1996, though the 25 years since have been quite different. Open source software has alleviated many of the problems brought up by the book, though not without problems if its own. Ultimately, software revenue models moved to SaaS, solving the inherent replicability of bits by hiding them behind a network and charging for access. Cox’s model, of metering by use, matches up more with the nascent “web3” movement and perhaps can finally be fulfilled there.
Cox may be too humble, as the Web would have never existed without him - Berners-Lee wrote the first implementation in Objective-C on a NeXT box, putting Cox’s idea of “Software-ICs” to use. The diagnosis of the software crisis the book offers, an elaborated argument from his paper “Planning the software industrial revolution”, feels mostly correct to me, but I’m unsure whether the solutions presented in this book would really solve it. Part of the solution is in a radical improvement in the process of programming, one which makes software reuse germane, which the book shies away from.
This book also suffers from being poorly edited. Many sections repeat themselves, sometimes in the same page even. Cox’s writing is clear and enjoyable though, and I would recommend the book to anyone who is still curious after reading the aforementioned paper. The software crisis is still very real, and any perspective on solving it is very very welcome!
Note: Over a decade later, Cox revisits the idea in an interview in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1..., where he observes that SaaS/SOA models solve the issue, at least at a higher level of granularity, better than superdistribution can.
Cox may be too humble, as the Web would have never existed without him - Berners-Lee wrote the first implementation in Objective-C on a NeXT box, putting Cox’s idea of “Software-ICs” to use. The diagnosis of the software crisis the book offers, an elaborated argument from his paper “Planning the software industrial revolution”, feels mostly correct to me, but I’m unsure whether the solutions presented in this book would really solve it. Part of the solution is in a radical improvement in the process of programming, one which makes software reuse germane, which the book shies away from.
This book also suffers from being poorly edited. Many sections repeat themselves, sometimes in the same page even. Cox’s writing is clear and enjoyable though, and I would recommend the book to anyone who is still curious after reading the aforementioned paper. The software crisis is still very real, and any perspective on solving it is very very welcome!
Note: Over a decade later, Cox revisits the idea in an interview in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1..., where he observes that SaaS/SOA models solve the issue, at least at a higher level of granularity, better than superdistribution can.
May 6, 2013
This is a must-read, particularly if you're looking for ways out of the App Store price crash or trying to figure out how a software company might make money from commercial components. Chapter 5 seems a little out of place being much more technical and less sociological than the rest of the book but it's a short, engaging, insightful read overall.
February 23, 2008
Brilliant, prescient work about the exchange of economic value through systems.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews