Think back to May 26, 1995. Steve Jobs was wandering in the desert, fiddling with some company called Pixar that made animated movies of dancing desk lamps, and planning his next step for NeXT. Bill Gates ruled the computing world and wrote a famous memo announcing that Microsoft was falling terribly behind in dominating the Internet, which Gates was sure to be a "tidal wave." Microsoft control was slipping and he could feel it.

My brain keeps returning to the moment in time when Gates recognized the difficulty in controlling the creative impulses of the world -- because I've been twiddling my thumbs waiting for Apple to approve my iPhone App version of my book, "Free for All."

[ There are many worthwhile productivity apps you won't find at the App Store. See "21 apps Apple doesn't want on your iPhone." ]

A long time ago in March, I hatched a simple plan. I would dump the raw text of my book on the open source movement into HTML, render the HTML on the iPhone screen, and give away copies. Just for grins, I would also write a new forward to the book, call it the