Keith Curtis has just written a book about the future of software. That in itself isn’t unique. More unusual is that Mr. Curtis, an 11-year veteran of Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, believes deeply that open source is the future of software.

Microsoft, of course, has long been the archenemy of the open source community, which is built on the notion of freely sharing intellectual property for the good of the community.

He argues that, in the same collaborative fashion that the Linux operating system has been built and improved, many things that are now science-fiction goals — such as those cars that drive themselves — can be achieved.

“The key to faster technological progress is making software free,” he writes.

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