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.

Comments

Cathedral and Bazaar

[cOdEgUru]

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.

Other movies...

[karmawarrior]

I just wonder if something cooler and politically positive could be done, something like "DMCA the movie", set in the future where paper books are non-existant, and people are unable to read electronic replacements if they haven't paid the subscription fees.

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?
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Keep attacking good things as "communist"

If it's good, will the MPAA...

[JCCyC]

...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.

Re:Bill Gates

[linuxpimp]

we can have Sammy L. Jackson play Steve Jobs

[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]

Re:Piracy?

[yuggoth]

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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No Linux running there

[mauddib~]

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.

Oh lord, here we go again...

[Bonker]

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.

See it here:

[Alien54]

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.

I imagine it will be quite a party!

Piracy?

[Hard_Code]

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.

Re:What about the actors?

[wass]

Hmm, cool. Who's going to be Linus? Tom Hanks? :-)

Yeah, Tom Hanks plays Linus, who got stranded on a desert island with his 386 and a solar-power generator, but no commercial operating system for his computer. So he has to write his own, from scratch. All while a volleyball named RMS keeps him company.

Uh, no . . .

[AntiFreeze]

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.