For decades, we treated software like books. We boxed it, wrapped it, bundled it up and shipped it to stores, where it was displayed on windows. While many commercial software products still share several of these elements, the high-street software store has all but disappeared. Its place has been taken by an increasingly agile deployment method, first from obscure FTP servers but now revolutionized in scale and convenience by the Web. So why shouldn't books move in the same direction?