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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.
While I thought this book was well written and thoroughly interesting, it definitely needed a better copyeditor. There were frequent typos (in one confusing case it states that the first version of GNU Emacs was released in 1996!) and mispellings. For one of the first in-depth, published profiles of such an important individual in the history (albeit breif history) of free software/open source, I would have expected a bit more care on O'Reilly's part. That said, it is well worth the read, as it gives a pretty balanced take on RMS.
There are some who believe that dedicating yourself to an ideal, and working ceaslessly in its pursuit, is more than interesting: it's admirable.
And let's not forget that the guy is, to borrow a Bostonism, "wicked smaht." He's MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, the guy frigging invented Emacs, which is a work of twisted genius comperable to the Necronomicon. You may think that his line is boring as dirt, but think how rotten it must be from his perspective - can you imagine spending hours of your time every day trying to convince people that the sky is blue?
Your question answers itself.
Why are you asking this question? Why aren't you asking "How exactly is istartedi interesting?". I'll tell you why. It's Because RMS is famous and I'm not.
That's enough, but it sort of begs the question "why is he famous?". The answer to that is long and difficult. Some would argue that he isn't famous, and outside the computing community that's true, but only because those outsideers don't realize what an impact the GNU culture has had (for better or worse) on the devices that impact their daily lives.
You could also ask, "at what point did he cross the threshold and become famous?". Was it when he took vengeance on Symbolics? Was it when the GNU project was announced? If he hadn't been at MIT, would anyone have cared? Did the MacArthur grant make him famous? I think pinpointing the exact moment is difficult.
Love him, hate him, love what he stands for, hate what he stands for. Regardless, I don't think there is any arguing that he is an important figure.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
> 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.
You gotta get out more.
How we know is more important than what we know.
can you imagine spending hours of your time every day trying to convince people that the sky is blue?
The trouble is, people keep telling him that the sky can be grey, white, or almost black. Yet he refuses to believe them.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Many others, including very smart people, disagree with economists that this is so. To cite just one minor problem: preferences of real humans are not transitive. This is a non-resolvable argument, since the economists say "you don't understand economics", the non-economist replies "I am questioning the basis of your argument, not its conclusions", and the economist trumps with "since you haven't stated your argument in terms of economics, it is by definition invalid".
However, in an open discussion forum please don't assume that everyone agrees that everything is explained by "economics" without defining and justifing your argument. Thanks.
sPh
Not everything in this world can be explained by economics. Economic analysis only works where things can be converted in to a particular 1-dimensional measure (money or its equivalent). Every human activity has some degree of "impedance mismatch" when trying to convert it into simplistic economic models. Economic analysis works well for things such as pork belly futures, but not so well for things like religion.
Most economists probably assume that software is like a commodity. RMS probably assumes that software is like a religion. I suspect that it has aspects of both.
Thus, RMS is qualified to comment about his software area, and economists are qualified to comment about theirs. Neither viewpoint covers the whole picture by itself.
I wish Larry Wall would get more involved in promoting the general idea of open source. Larry would be so much easier for government and corporate types to accept, and he certainly has a solid reputation in the open source world. This is not to say anything about ESR or RMS, just that L?W would make an excellent addition to the public relations efforts of open source.
Miko O'Sullivan
You have moral right to my creation?
Of course not. If you don't want to share your code with me, then don't license it under a Free software license.
Or are you talking about the so-called "viral" nature of the GPL? (i.e., you may not use my GPL'd code in your program unless yours is GPL'd too). Sorry, you have it exactly backwards. *You* have no right (moral or otherwise) to use *my* code, unless you agree to my license.
Hope that clears it up for you.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
O'Reilly has reviews of the book available. Among them, is a 'review' by Bill Gates:
So don't exist by selling software. Exist by selling hardware that uses it, or by supporting software other people write, or writing custom software that is of much more value to the company that commissioned it than it would be to anyone else (and thus, would never be programmed without their sponsorship.)
Nobody whines that there's no market for ice now that everyone can afford a freezer. (There used to be a thriving market in selling large blocks of ice for homeowners to use basically as a refrigerator.) It could be that selling software has only temporarily been a means to make a ton of money. It wouldn't be the end of the world.
There isn't much precedent in the world for intangible goods. Even art used to take a master to forge, and if an identical copy was made people would still value the original more simply because of its status as an original.
Now we have software though, which can be copied essentially for free, and which has no special original that people want. Any copy is the same as any other. Why should we expect a market based around this to work like other markets?