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RevolutionOS: The Linux Movie?
xmutex writes "Wired has a story about a documentary concerning the history of Linux and the open-source movement." I've heard bits and pieces from people at LWCE about the movie, but won't know for myself until I get a chance to see it. I guess its airing tonight in NY, and if you're at the show, you can get tickets from the OSDN booth.
I wonder if Linus will fly down the trench with TIEs on his tail. Or perhaps Tux will go bouncing down some huge steps. Perhaps Bill Gates will be lying on his deathbed and whisper, "UNIX... UNIX..."
--hongpong.com
Just what an utterly boring piece of turd this is going to be?
I can just see myself on the edge of my seat as the first stable kernel is released. Woo hoo!
Karma: Shitty (mostly due to American moderators)
Moore thinks the open source development model is here to stay, but is not convinced it will become completely dominant. He believes that it will probably co-exist with the closed source model.
This is what I also believe. No matter how much we call it a revolution, these are two sides of the same coin and one cannot exist without the other. And lets not forget that some of the Open source software concepts were derived from closed source products. And another thing that is mentioned is that the main rival to Open Source is not Microsoft. The main rival is not even a corporate entity. I would say the main rival to Open source is the public not being educated enough to accept it. And user experience.
Atleast this would be far far better than the stupid geeks in Antitrust. Gosh, I swear if someone hadnt knocked off that "Open Source fanatic" geek, I would have done it myself
My two cents.
Rapid Nirvana
Ok d00dz - start posting the links to DivX;-) Files NOW. We WANT to see this movie.
--
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Nothing is more embarressing than a mainstream movie trying to show some computer subculture. Just by the fact that watching people hack without the proper knowledge is even more boring than watching American Football without the proper knowledge. So they have to make it exciting to everyone, wich cannot be done without getting stupid. I think the only movie that got the right balance was "23".
But mostly it is a random listing of buzzwords with some graphics of altering quality.
It would be a nice poll to pick up the stupidest dialouge involving computers in a movie or TV show.
A rich source of such things is "Golden Eye", which isn't a really bad movie apart from this.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
Napster (I understand it's not Open Source, but it tends to get lumped in), Samba, reverse-engineering other products to make Linux interoperate - these all have been presented by the media as "pirate" activities.
So I think he's saying "guilt by association," which is another hurdle Open Source advocates to overcome on their way to common acceptance.
it featured Natalie Portman dancing around in a skimpy penguin suit....
Hey, it's America. Why admire somebody with brains, talent and drive when you can admire somebody who's tall and handsome/thin and beautiful?
Does anyone know what time and where this movie is showing in NYC? Does anyone want to go?
Actually, when I first read the article I thought it said the movie was done by Michael Moore of Roger and Me fame. That might have been cute: Roger trying to get an interview with Bill Gates and in the meantime showing the downtrodden IT workers that have to deal with the crap his company spews...
Yeah, but it will probably do better than the "Jesus the Miniseries" on television a few months ago. Would that make Linus bigger than Jesus?
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I want to see it, but I doubt it come into the Northern New England area. I can only hope it makes it to tape so I can watch it at home.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
How will it do that? He's not in it, or narrating it, or anything.
Best Slashdot Co
According to Moore, Star Wars episode 2 will also play like an amateur porno flick because it is shot in DV.
Um, I think I'll hand the Natalie Portman jokes to the trolls.
Just because this is shot in 35mm, that doesn't mean it looks good (or even OK), especially if he did everything himself without maxing out his Visa.
There were some folks with us who are not from the computer world and they enjoyed as well. They felt it gave them a good insight into what Open Source and Linux is about.
There is quite a bit of focus on VA Linux but that doesn't distract too much...
It definatly has a "PBS" feel to it.(ie it would do well as a show on public broadcasting or Arts and Entertainment network. It definately won't be a Major Motion Picture for the Masses...
The movie will also be great when its out on DVD or Videotape so we can give it to our family and non-Linux oriented friends to convey some of the more philosophical reasons why we are crazy for Linux and Open Source.
Unfortunately they haven't gotten any distribution deals yet, so it might be a while before we see the film (and it is shot on film) on TV, theaters or on Videotape/DVD
Nightmares? What I still don't get is how the world does that stupid curly bob hairdo has made its ugly re-apperance in from Hackers to Anti-Trust? Some thing will never change...
Which is meant for advanced users after learning how to strip, touch, finger, fsck, ...
--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
"For some reason the girls still don't like me." :)
Cheers!
- Jester
OMG, that is so true that it's depressing. Oh well... I have that kernel source to keep me happy!
So, okay, did Charleton Heston do the voiceover before or after he went in rehab?
wags
Well if lines upon lines of C and assembler don't keep you warm at night, then what will?...
If screenplays can be considered source code for movies, then the OS movie is definitely this: any writer who wants to contribute scenes to a screenplay can. Once the draft is satisfactory (ie ready for release), a film could be made and distributed.
I mean, why couldn't this set up work?
As to GPL'ing films, now that's very interesting...
Being sold in a box is not the sole means of making software commercial. Granted, that level of commoditization of the market that was seen with the advent of the personal computer some 25 years has spurred unprecedented growth in commercial software. And in the early days of PCs, huge amounts of software was taken from source published in magazines, etc. or traded at usergroups.
But, in the 54 years since ENIAC, personal computers have been around for slightly less than half of that. The way it worked was this: you bought an IBM or UNIVAC and they would program it for you (say to do insurance calculations). They effectively sold the software as part of the hardware. Would Travelers give AETna (actually, its predecessor company) their source? Not likely.
Yes, the early days of the PC were very free-software-ish, but to consider the history of computing to have started with the PC is to ignore over half the history of "modern" computing.
I'm not sure. I think I prefer to have a warm body of the opposite sex beside me.
-- Cheers!
Subway: A, C, E to 42nd St -
Port Authority; N, R, S, 1, 1, 3, 7, 9 to 42nd Str
Is it just me or does this look like a walkthrough for Zork 3 ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Binaries are for wussies- or so I've read.
You will be able to make changes to the program and distribute it so long as you include the source material and EDL.
If anyone has seen Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, rumor has it that it was cut in a similar manner.
www.ridiculopathy.com
You could make this initially boring premise look pretty cool with a Matrix-style gang of subversive programmers cracking content, and people being killed through lack of critical information the moment they need it. You could throw in some "clues" about what the movie was alluding to - names of black-hats would be Valenti, Kaplan, et al. The programmers group could be called DeCSS or something similar.
I wonder how far a kick-ass movie script with the above would get in Hollywood before someone realises what it's about and quietly kills the project?
--
Keep attacking good things as "communist"
KMSMA (WWBD?)
...be able to prevent it from being nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar? That'd be a riot. Imagine RMS delivering the acceptance speech. Or better yet, Jon Johannsen. And Jackass Valenti's reaction.
If the Open Source community gets saddled with the reputation for stealing intellectual property, it will forge a divide between us and the organizations who have money and need our services. The Open Source community will suffer because we won't have the resources to dedicate to keeping up with the closed source development houses. Eventually we'll fall behind and Open Source software will become a joke.
If Linus could only work on the kernel for a few hours after work, we wouldn't see 2.4 until at least 2002. Even keeping up with the LKML e-mail takes 2 hours per day.
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
[Fade in on Gates and Jobs sitting in a car on a city street]
Jobs: I heard you were in Europe recently?
Gates: Yeah. It's like America, but there's a lot of little differences though.
Jobs: Like what?
Gates: For example, you know what they call a mouse in France?
Jobs: You mean they don't call it a mouse?
Gates: Naw, the language difference. They call it 'le souris.'
Jobs: That's pretty fscked up. Now let's kill some people.
[Cue music]
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Piracy might be an issue because it's only a short line of thought from "Software ought to be free" to "Software ought to be free, and if it isn't, I'm taking it anyway, cuz 1 4m 1337 cr4X0r!", although the meaning of "free" is quite different from each other in those contexts. So if some pirate groups start distributing warez in the name of " freeing the software" it could shed a bad light on the whole OS/FS movement. Anyone with a bit of common sense would be able to tell the difference, but since when has common sense been a criterium to become a PHB? :-) Most people don't even know the differences between hackers, crackers, warez d00dz and script k1dd13z...
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Cthulhu fhtagn!
Well that was quite possibly the most useful and worthwhile comment on this page... entertained me for a while anyway...
Regards,
Denny
# Using Linux in the UK? Check out Linux UK
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The <A HREF="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb .txt"> first law </A> of entertainment is to have a conflict drive the plot.
The better techie movies have character conflicts
at their core. Pirates of Silicon Valley is one
about the rivalry of the PC founders. Anti-trust
was another with a conflict between an evil
closed-source mogul and a open-source newbie.
Folks: This is why people regard some of you "advocates" as loose cannons and discount all of what you say. It says right in the article that the guy couldn't afford to hire Charlton Heston as the narrator.
Hell, if Gates is so philantropic these days, maybe he could be persuaded to foot the bill to get Moses to do the voiceover.
Open source software concepts were derived from closed source products
Actually, you're wrong. Before Microsoft, before Sun, before UNIX, there WAS no commercial software. There was no "Open Source". ALL software was free (speech and beer) because they didn't even have a concept of it being different. Not to say that in today's world, commercial software hasn't made a place for itself but dont believe for a second that it came first.
God Fucking Damnit
The one part of the article which turned my head was Moore's statement that "If the voluntary ideals of the open source movement are further corrupted by a subculture of intellectual property theft, then the whole movement will be tainted. The owners of intellectual property will continue to fight the movement rather than cooperate with it." It kinda makes me think that even after this documentary (which I may never see unless it gets aired on Discovery Channel someday), J.T.S. Moore just doesn't get it. The whole point of the Free Software movement is not so much voluntary programming for fun as it is to get away from these notions of intellectual property, once and for all. There is a very large and very vocal segment of the Free Software movement which indeed laughs at all notions of "intellectual property" and whose spirit is the very antithesis of the owning of information: The Free Software Foundation. The fact that this was the organization that spearheaded the revolution should not have escaped Moore, and that this undercurrent of hostility to the concept of "intellectual property" pervades the hacker subculture now more than ever (a brief look at some of the articles and comments that appear here on /. should convince anyone beyond doubt).
If Moore had decided to read some of the texts on the philosophy of the GNU project, the GNU Public License, or even recent /. articles (and their attendant comments) on intellectual property issues (such as DeCSS) he would be convinced that the very idea of "intellectual property" and the ownership of information of any kind is fundamentally incompatible with and repugnant to the ideals of the Free Software movement. The Free Software movement is not just about free software, but free exchange of ideas. The owners of intellectual property are concerned with restricting such an exchange of ideas for their personal gain. Both sides are obviously mutually and diametrically opposed, though Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens have managed to negotiate an uneasy peace under the banner of "Open Source." It remains to be seen whether this compromise will last, but it is my belief that this war of ideology will continue until one side's power is broken for good.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
That wouldn't be too unusual for those folks. In the 17:3 issue of 2600 they posted a scan of a letter from the MPAA asking for "permission to use the '2600 The Hacker Quarterly Magazine' as a backgound setdressing/prop," and the letter was written, of course, on the same letterhead they used to tell 2600 that they were suing them.
-B
benjones@superutility.net
-B
one more thing that I really want to add to this, is that in the movie, not one of the unix geeks had facial hair. now c'mon every knows that the amount of facial hair you have is indicitave to your unix knowledge. I know Linus has none, but he is an exception. :)
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Besides which i hate republicans.
:)
And we hate you, every single one of us
Finkployd
AMC is a commercial chain - Here is the information you asked for. (and more)
As seen at amctheaters.com
(To Recap) If you are in NYC, then:
Revolution O.S. will be sneak-previewed Thursday night at Manhattan's AMC Empire 25 Theater, at 8:30.
Those attending LinuxWorld this week can pick up tickets at the OSDN booth (#3000) in the dot-org pavilion.
So where is it exactly?
AMC Empire 25
234 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
(212)398-3939
Subway: A, C, E to 42nd St -
Port Authority; N, R, S, 1, 1, 3, 7, 9 to 42nd Str
I guess the subway directions make perfect sense if you live in NYC
The first public screening of the film will be at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 12. Moore said people who would like to see the film should feel free to call "and pester" film distributors such as Miramax, Lions Gate in Los Angeles, and Cowboy Booking International in New York. "If enough people say they want to see the film, maybe they will distribute it," Moore said.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I think the Heston reference must be tongue in cheek. Moore refers to his movie as an "epic". Heston is famous for his roles in epic movies like Ben Hur, or wannabe epics like most of his other movies. In Soylent Green, Heston gives a performance of unsurpassed hamminess - surely its mention is a clue that this is a joke?
"I can only show you Linux... you're the one who has to read the man pages."
No, part of his job description is officially working on the kernel.
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
This flick was one-sided and made the Open Source case against M$ through not-so-clever tricks like having a woman read Bill Gate's letter to the Homebrew Computer Club in a frenzied almost manaical voice.
Basically, it was a vehicle for Linus, Larry, Eric, Bruce and Richard to get their faces on the big screen. I don't think it was worth the film it was printed on. I'll bet Larry Augustin financed a good portion of the movie.
Moore was asked during Q&A after the preview if he would be releasing the film to the public, open source style. His reply was that he put alot of time into the movie by doing the work of much of the traditional movie crew and didn't think that others should profit from his hard work (not a quote). Obviuosly he doesn't get the open source software movement. At least not the spirit of it.
I think he should release it as an "open source" movie and people could shoot new footage and add to his work and re-release it!
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Is there sex in it?
I still wake up screaming at night, thinking that I am in the theater watching Anti-Trust. That was just a down right dreadful movie.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
"Charlton Heston is a national treasure," Moore said. "I think any man who had the vision to star in Planet of the Apes, Omega Man and Soylent Green deserves respect. The bottom line is that if you love individual liberty you have to admire Charlton Heston."
Says the article at WiredNews. I'm scared.
And not just of Charlton Heston.
John
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Instead of Linux on these machine, the directors have chosen to install the new MovieOS from Miranda. Not only delivers it much better visualisation on camera (20 columns width), it can even be put on one standard 1.44MB diskette (High Density of course).
I hope MovieOS will soon be opensource, so we can enjoy it too.
This is a replacement signature.
Hmm, cool. Who's going to be Linus? Tom Hanks? :-)
As a newbie to the Linux-open source scene, I would really like to see a movie about the "Revolution" It can't be worse than that smoldering pile of sh*t "Antitrust"
hawaiianshirt
I read this wired story and thought about posting to Slashdot, but thought 'No, who wants to read about a Pirates of Silicon Valley' with Linux geeks and FSF heads.'
Apparently this is more a documentary, albeit narrated by old Six-shooter Chuck Heston himself, but my thought holds true. Regardless of how important you feel the history of the FS and OS movements are, a documentary about them belongs on latenight PBS or Discovery.
"Get your filthy paws off me, you damn, dirty MFC Coder!"
I think this is going to be received about as well as *any* documentary that goes to the bigscreen. IE: It will be shown only in art houses and campus theaters in very large cities. It will expose a *few* people to the ethos behind FS and OS, but not nearly as much as the Linux/FS community would hope.
If it does achieve any kind of success, it will be in the same vein as 'Trekkies'. People will see it as just another movie about geeks.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Revolution O.S. will be sneak-previewed Thursday night at Manhattan's AMC Empire 25 Theater, at 8:30. Those attending LinuxWorld this week can pick up tickets at the OSDN booth (#3000) in the dot-org pavilion.
I imagine it will be quite a party!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Not only these three fine movies, but Anthony and Cleopatra, The Ten Commandments, Local Hero...oh, wait, wrong old guy.
Also, PRESIDENT of the NRA!!!!
Eat your heart out Jon!
Will the movie be open source? Will I be able to have access to a copy of the original film so that I can modify it and recompile?
The article was going along well (well, besides the Heston mention), until he starts blathering about piracy. Piracy? What does Open Source/Free Software have to fear from *piracy*? Does he mean that corporations will take Free Software and use it in proprietary products, hence "stealing" the IP of the original authors? Or instead, is he blabbing incoherently about how Free Software is itself a threat to intellectual property of proprietary content producers? Seems like the latter...and if so, what type of advocate is he? Isn't the whole basis for a lot of the copyright and IP reform that digital content is different from physical objects in *type* not just *degree*? I.e., because "taking" a digital creation does not deprive the owner of the original, theft does not apply, and we are in a whole different ballpark.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Bill Gates was actually played by Anthony Michael Hall (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, SNL briefly). Noah Wiley of ER played Steve Jobs.
Thank God. That's just what we don't need, a gun totin' NRA spoutin' activist trying to explain to the world how OSS works ...
Sorry Eric.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
"I'll be GNU!"
"Hasta, la vista, NT!"
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Revolution O.S. was made by J.T.S. Moore, who was totally unfamiliar with the open source community when he started the project. "It wasn't my idea," Moore said. "...he jokingly suggested I make a documentary about the history of Linux."
Oh yes, that's very promising.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I saw a preview of this movie, and my favorite scene was at the Amsterdam airport where RMS and Linux came to blows as to whether Gnu/Linux or Linux was correct.
When RMS had Linux in a headlock, I thought it was all over, until Tove gave him a flying dropkick upside his hippy head.
Right, after the MPAA just got done clobbering the Open-source community for DeCSS and LiVid, they're going to distribute a movie about us©©©
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
No kidding, man. I went to ALS and about creamed when I saw come of those girls in the tight red spandex. Heh... I even asked one if she felt a bit horny while I stroked her little devil horns.
I think the movie is going to be pretty cool. People will have to realise that at least it won't be full of crap like Anti-trust. It *is* a documentary, not some hyped-up piece of crap. I don't expect it to be exciting or action-packed, I expect it to be factual and interesting.
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
'Revolution OS' will be playing the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX on March 12, as well as two dates later that week TBA. Also on March 12 at the SXSW Interactive Conference, Don Marti (Linux Journal) hosts a panel 'Future of Open Source', with Chris DiBona, Brian Behlendorf, Ean Schuessler, and Monty Montgomery (xiph.org) sxsw.com david at sxsw dot com
I see one very large problem being created by this movie, err, documentary.
If this makes Charlton Heston the publicly known voice for the open source community, I am going to shoot myself.
---
"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Natalie Portman gonna play?
Karma: Shitty (mostly due to American moderators)
"Don't get me wrong, no one is gonna mistake my cinematography in Revolution O.S. for a slick Hollywood film, but at least it doesn't have the amateur porno aesthetic of DV."
An amateur porno film with an OSS theme now that would have rocked.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I still mirror this great email thread.... http://security.royans.net/info/posts/linux_is_obs olete.shtml
"This is kill -9. When you absolutely positively have to kill every motherfucking process in the box." ...or...
"What does Linus look like?"
"What?"
"What? What OS do you use?"
"What?"
"What? I never heard of no OS called What. Do they program C in What?"
We went through these when Sammy was in that Star Wars movie.
f u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmng
If he could play both the professor in Brainstorm and the massively psychopathic angel Gabriel in The Prophecy, he can almost project Gates' emotionless drive to rule the world by owning its core technology.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Ok...I guess this has the potential to at least more widely advertise the open source movement, but why do I keep getting images of "The Blair Linux Project" flashing through my head.
Perhaps Moore does know what he's doing and just doesn't interview well, but my impression says that this "documentary" is going to come off like "Trekkies", and while it may be amusing it doesn't exactly put the people depicted in a great light...
Plead sanity, then they'll know you're crazy...
Will the red latex BSD grrls be there?
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This
It's a Linux movie, so you have to get your rocks off by watching a man waddle around in a penguin suit.
No wonder Linux geeks never get any action.