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Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade
Free as in Freedom is a generally sympathetic but far from hagiographic biography of Richard Stallman, inspiration of the free software movement. While much of the material in it will be familiar to anyone actively involved with free software, there are, as Williams claims, "facts and quotes in here that one won't find in any Slashdot story or Google search." It is also an entertaining and accessible study, which I finished within a day of my review copy arriving.
Williams begins with the famous jamming printer and Stallman's encounter with a non-disclosure agreement that prevented him writing reporting software for it. He then jumps forwards to a speech given by Stallman in 2001, responding to attacks by Microsoft on the GNU GPL. Having used these episodes to introduce Stallman and explain the basic idea of free software, the rest of the work continues in a similar vein, mixing historical chapters with ones describing Williams' own meetings with Stallman.
Chapter three describes Stallman's childhood as a prodigy; chapter four his experiences at Harvard and MIT; chapter six the MIT AI Lab and the Emacs "commune"; chapter seven the death of the MIT hacker community and the first announcement of the GNU Project; chapter nine the GNU GPL; chapter ten the appearance of Linux and debates over GNU/Linux; and chapter eleven the coining of the term "open source" and the arguments over that. These contain quotes by everyone from Stallman's mother to the leading lights of free software, as well as plenty by Stallman himself. The narrative never strays too far from its subject, but becomes inextricably interwoven with the broader history and politics of free software and sometimes digresses to cover key figures and events with which Stallman wasn't directly involved.
Williams' first-hand accounts help give Stallman a human face: chapter five recounts a meeting in 1999 LinuxWorld, chapter eight a meeting in Hawaii, and chapter twelve a frustrating car trip with Stallman at the wheel. These give a feel for Stallman's personality and presence, his forthrightness and emotional intensity, his steadfastness and his abrasiveness, and his ability to unsettle. Chapter thirteen attempts to predict Stallman's status "in 100 years," quoting opinions from from Eben Moglen, John Gilmore, Eric Raymond, and Lawrence Lessig; it also suggests that Stallman's personality may be inseparable from his achievements.
Although I was already involved with free software advocacy, my first encounter with Richard Stallman came when he turned up to a rehearsal of my gamelan group; afterwards I tried without much success to explain to my fellow musicians just how important the strange bearded man they'd just met was. I don't think Free as in Freedom would help much with that: it jumps around too much and assumes too much general knowledge of the computer industry to be a good introduction for complete outsiders. Those already interested in the history and politics of free software and hacker culture, however, should relish it.
In an epilogue Williams talks about the writing of Free as in Freedom and the choice of copyright license. Despite the big fuss made about it being released under the GNU Free Documentation License, however, only a sample chapter is available online now and the rest will not, apparently, be put online until June. (This is not a violation of the OFDL, because Williams as copyright holder can allow O'Reilly to distribute the book in any way they like.) So if you don't want to buy a printed copy, you can either wait three months or hope someone OCRs the book sooner.
You can purchase Free as in Freedom from Barnes & Noble, read chapter three online, or check out Danny's 600 other book reviews. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.
That's latin for "appeal to false authority."
Without commenting on whether open source/free software is a good thing or not, what determines whether it is a good thing or not is a matter of economics. Yet someone who has a background not in economics but software development is considered to be insightful and wise when commenting on a very complex matter outside of his field.
General Motors would not promote even it's best engineer to be the companies CEO, nor should those seeking wisdom on the impact of free versus commercial software rely on the screeds of the economically ignorant.
> No matter what you think of the man, he's like a broken record.
You mean he is very consistent in what he says and believes?
> it's certainly anything but interesting.
I dunno. I met Richard Stallman at the Atlanta Linux Showcase a few years ago. He is definately different. Very quiet until you press the right button. I walked up to his stand where he was sitting - books were being sold at the booth. I bought an AWK book and ask him if he would sign it - he said no. I asked why and he told me he didn't write it. I said ok which book did you write - he said they were sold out. I asked if there was anything he WOULD sign and he said sorry all was sold out. Man was I frustrated heh. But then I kinda realized that he was concerned that if he signed something, he would be held as endorsing something.
He was generally enjoying the whole thing too as I could see. We talked a little bit and I said I appreciated everything he's doing for Free Software and that I was going to get an autograph next time I saw him. He just grinned like the Mona Lisa.
You don't think such a personality is interesting? I do.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I'm afraid Mr Stallman gives "freedom" a different meaning to me.
When I want my code to be free as in freedom, I put it under a BSD, MIT or Beerware license; why should I decide someone else is less deserving of using my code than anyone else? That's not very free.
Sure, people can place restrictions on their changes, but those changes are their work and I'd rather not take away their freedom in controling it, and I definately don't want to take away their freedom of control over code that happens to use something I've written.
That's not to say there's anything wrong with the GPL, just that pushing it as a "free" license rather pushes the concept of freedom to breaking point IMO.
Two things. ;-) The model of selling use-rights via EULA is within-my-lifetime new and no more a part of human nature than the use-rights selling models that the RIAA and MPAA push (sorry, Hilary, sorry, Jack). You may wish to check your employment contract to verify that you have more rights to your creations than Prince has to '1999'.
One, all software once was free (as in beer) and swapped freely via user groups. Why? The profit model was in hardware and support licenses. That once was taught in the CS curriculum, although I could be showing my age
Two, I've seen more than one company left holding a tie attached to an empty suit while desperate programmers attempt to reverse-engineer a closed-source business-critical application or utility. It might not be entirely legal, but it happens.
-- "Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep voting? Do you think you're voting for something?"
The problem with Stallman, and what makes him profoundly NON-interesting, is that he starts off with initial principles that are at least a little wrong-headed and then refuses to allow real discussion.
I had an email conversation with him once, in which I tried to get him to accept the idea that a balance between the rights of programmers and the rights of end-users is not only fair, but a good idea. He got snippy with me, and then dropped out of the conversation, I assume by killfiling me. I wasn't even giving him that hard a time. I just wasn't sucking up to him as most people seem to.
No one who carries out a conversation that way is interesting. At best, they can be momentarily amusing. At worst, annoying. But interesting, no.