Customer Reviews

Superdistribution: Objects as Property on the Electronic Frontier

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Superdistribution is the most important software engineering book of this decade. It is controversial, because it locates the difficulty of software engineering not in development processes or tools---the focus of 99% of the software engineering community---but in the way that software is bought and sold.

Cox's claim can be summarized in four points: 1. The reason that software is costly, of low quality, and difficult to construct is that we build it rather than assemble it from prebuilt components, the way that every other engineered product is constructed. 2. the reason we build rather than assemble is that there is not a robust market for buying and selling components. 3. The reason there is not a robust market for components is that there is no standard mechanism for pay-per-use of components. 4. The reason there is no standard mechanism has to do with the difference between information and atoms

Get it? Neither did I at first. But I am conviced he is right about all four points.

Cox also offers a solution to this problem, a "superdistribution" mechanism that provides pay-per-use. But I think the real value of the book is its compelling explanation of the problem.

David Bridgeland

Powersim Corporation