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RevolutionOS: The Linux Movie? 90

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-woulda-co-starred-with-angelina-jolie dept.
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.
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RevolutionOS: This Linux Movie? More

RevolutionOS: This Linux Movie?

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  • 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..."
  • 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!

  • Cathedral and Bazaar (Score:3)

    by cOdEgUru ( 181536 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:21AM (#464569) Homepage Journal


    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.
  • Ok d00dz - start posting the links to DivX;-) Files NOW. We WANT to see this movie.

    --
  • 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.
  • I believe that by piracy, he means the association (being created in the mind of the public) of software & media pirates with Open Source.

    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...
  • I think this is going to be received about as well as *any* documentary that goes to the bigscreen.

    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?

  • 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.
  • How will it do that? He's not in it, or narrating it, or anything.
  • 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.
  • The movie is quite good! Its definately of documentary style yet conveys things in a narrative way.

    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...
  • It's spelled LaTeX.

    Which is meant for advanced users after learning how to strip, touch, finger, fsck, ...

    --

  • "For some reason the girls still don't like me."
    OMG, that is so true that it's depressing. Oh well... I have that kernel source to keep me happy! :) Cheers! - Jester
  • So, okay, did Charleton Heston do the voiceover before or after he went in rehab?
  • Well if lines upon lines of C and assembler don't keep you warm at night, then what will?...
  • I've been known to dabble in screenwriting (it's been about 5 years or so since I caught the bug), and an idea hit me recently: the film equivalent of open source!

    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...

  • Where do you get that from?

    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.
  • 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 ?

  • When the film is released, you can buy a package with the source material and an EDL (edit decision list). You are expected to conform the program on your own.

    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 [ridiculopathy.com]

  • Other movies... (Score:3)

    by karmawarrior ( 311177 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:26AM (#464592) Journal
    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?
    --
    Keep attacking good things as "communist"

  • If it's good, will the MPAA... (Score:4)

    by JCCyC ( 179760 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:26AM (#464593) Journal
    ...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

  • Re:Bill Gates (Score:5)

    by linuxpimp ( 236963 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @07:35AM (#464595) Homepage
    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? (Score:3)

    by yuggoth ( 85136 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @07:35AM (#464596)

    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...


    --

  • 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 [linuxuk.co.uk]

  • 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.
  • 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 [gnu.org]. 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 [gnu.org], 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.
  • That wouldn't be too unusual for those folks. In the 17:3 issue of 2600 [2600.org] 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
  • 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. :)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • If you don't have tickets, can you get them at the door or just "walk in". Come one man, information should be free and a documentary does contain information ;) Just kidding. I am on NY on business and REALLY want to see this, where is this placed located? please reply if you have any more info on this? Thanks

    AMC is a commercial chain - Here is the information you asked for. (and more)

    As seen at amctheaters.com [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 [sxsw.com] Film Festival [sxsw.com] 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 [mailto], Lions Gate [lionsgatefilms.com] in Los Angeles, and Cowboy Booking International [cowboybi.com] in New York. "If enough people say they want to see the film, maybe they will distribute it," Moore said.

  • 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?
  • Mathew Broderick as Linus than I think it might be worth seeing.

    "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
  • I saw this movie at the preview. What an unbelievable load of doo doo. I always thought documentaries were supposed to document all sides of what happened in a fair and impartial manner.

    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!

  • The most imporant thing (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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.
  • "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

  • No Linux running there (Score:4)

    by mauddib~ ( 126018 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @05:58AM (#464613) Homepage
    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.

  • What about the actors? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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"

  • Oh lord, here we go again... (Score:4)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:03AM (#464616)
    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: (Score:3)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:36AM (#464617) Journal
    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!

  • "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."

    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?

  • Really, I was thinking, WTF?

    Charlton Heston didn't have the "foresight" to star in anything - he was paid. This guy is a moron. Charlton Heston isn't a national treasure, but Richard Stallman arguably is. Charlton Heston is a fucking actor. This guy is an absolute jackass. Besides which i hate republicans.

    thank You

    --

  • Piracy? (Score:3)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:44AM (#464621)
    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.
  • Speaking of comparing Trekkies and Linux Geeks, I wrote this poem earlier on kuro5hin. It describes the changes that came about when the Trekkies turned in their Spock ears for a Tux t-shirt.

    So long and farewell Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock,
    I look at the kernel source when I stroke my cock.
    We no longer want to ask Scotty to teleport,
    We prefer to use perl to make web reports.
    I have no concerns of a phaser blast,
    I always have TUX TP to wipe my ass.
    I lost my wall-sized poster of the Enterprise,
    It was replaced with full screen mode xeyes.
    Although open source is now the way to be,
    For some reason the girls still don't like me.

  • Bill Gates was actually played by Anthony Michael Hall (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, SNL briefly). Noah Wiley of ER played Steve Jobs.

  • Re:What about the actors? (Score:5)

    by wass ( 72082 ) on Thursday February 01, 2001 @07:56AM (#464624)
    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.

  • You're forgetting maddog!

    He has a great image!

    He looks like santa claus.

    Children would switch to linux if santa said so.

    Btw, this is John "Maddog" Hall [dibona.com]. Picture references are great!

    ----------
  • I am quite sure he is referring to when someone, for instance, pirates an expensive office applications suite instead of installing any of the open source alternatives.
  • His one regret was that he didn't have enough money to hire Charlton Heston to narrate the film.

    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 ...

    ... Oh, wait ... I didn't mean ...

    Sorry Eric.

  • "I'll be GNU!"
    "Hasta, la vista, NT!"

    --
  • I have to agree. Facial hair is an important feature in spotting the rare and usually unseen unix geek...anyone see the pic. of Alan Cox in the latest Wired mag? Talk about facial hair! Oh yeah...one other thing, geeks do have style! Rather then seeing Asian-dude-actor-with-bad-perm wearing "Code Poet" t-shirt, Cox wearing a "Code Poet" t-shirt in his pic. for Wired! Now that's the REAL DEAL!! Btw, have faith in this movie idea folks...maybe they might get it right this time....maybe..

  • That's interesting. I was thinking the other day about making a movie set in a future where there were no intellectual property rights.

    There is a gang of criminals who sell binaries to people that need things done NOW. The legal alternative is to wait for your request to be handled by a government-run Sourceforge style collective, which costs nothing but takes forever. In one scene, a man is programming and there is a knock on the door: "Open up! We're here to set you free". Police burst in and take his computer while singing The Free Software Song [gnu.org]. He spends a year in jail. When he gets out, his daughter asks him to tell her about when "free" used to mean you could do what you want. It would be just like in Fahrenheit 451 where the role of the fireman had changed.

  • Possibly, but would it make him bigger than the Beatles?
  • Other features of MovieOS:
    • Every keystroke or mouse click makes a beeping sound
    • If you enter an incorrect password even once, a blinking red "ACCESS DENIED" message fills the entire screen and klaxons go off
    • Instant access to any computer in the universe with no dialing or slow downloads and 100% compatibility with all platforms including those invented by aliens
    • Eerie voice synthesizer and nervous, insecure personality that occasionally goes berzerk and tries to kill you

  • Not exactly what your looking for, but the movie Freedom Downtime [freedomdowntime.com] might be worth a look. It was created by the 2600 Magazine people, the same folks that were sued for hosting and linking to the DeCSS code as part of a news story they ran on their website [2600.com].

    It doesn't deal with the DeCSS case specifically, but covers the good old topics such as mighty state and corporate entities that repress of information, and harshly penalizes harmless people who figure stuff out.

  • > 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.

    For a start, you could look at RMS's essay, "The Right to Read". It's set in virtually the same type of world. (If you haven't read it yet, read it. It's a very good essay.)

    Granted, you would need to spice it up a bit...

    > You could throw in some "clues" about what the movie was alluding to...

    Honestly, that seems a little bit lame. It might be better to set it up as a slower movie, without as much action...

    The 'Tycho uprising' in "The Right to Read" might provide a suitable background.

    > 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?

    Probably not very far... but it can't hurt to try...
  • 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.

  • I loved the RMS-Torvald showdown (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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.
  • Moore said people who would like to see the film should feel free to call "and pester" film distributors such as Miramax

    Right, after the MPAA just got done clobbering the Open-source community for DeCSS and LiVid [wwwlinuxvideoorg], they're going to distribute a movie about us©©©

  • 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.

  • See it in Austin TX in March (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    '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 [sxsw.com] david at sxsw dot com

  • Uh, no . . . (Score:4)

    by AntiFreeze ( 31247 ) <antifreeze42@gEI ... minus physicist> on Thursday February 01, 2001 @06:52AM (#464640) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • This can't be good. For the love of Christ, they should have contacted me. Think about what this does for the image of Linux for all those people how are new to it, or all the corporate people who are looking into it. Here is the cast of characters:

    Richard Stallman - In a word....scary. No really, I mean scary. Sure the guy can hack out some great code, Ilove emacs and all, but this guy is not who you want leading the revolution. He looks like Charles Manson for Gods sake, a big fat opinionated, smelly, unable to compromise Charles Manson.

    Linus Torvalds - Okay, we have a winner here, he's bright, charming and witty, and also very personable. No problems here. Maybe a little too geeky though, maybe he should try wearing some more fasoinable clothes, get some Nautica and Perry Ellis stuff on him... that would spruce him up a bit.

    Eric Raymond - Uh oh... Okay, he's smart and personable, but... for Gods sake man, fix those theeth. Loose some weight, and can the gun nut crap. Tell me that gun nuts don't strike fear into the hearts of most sane middle americans. This guy is a little too enit-establishment... and what's up with that off center eyeball.

    Bruce Perens - Okay, even though I can never get electric fence to work right, I suspect it's user error... heck, I guess I don't know anyting about Bruce so he must be okay.

    Next time guys, put me in your stupid film and I'll turn this revolution thing around for you.

    Yours,
    Bob
  • If you do shoot yourself, you can thank Charlton Heston for protecting your right to bear the arms that you used to do the deed.
  • Natalie Portman gonna play?
  • "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.
  • "albeit narrated by old Six-shooter Chuck Heston himself"

    Nope. He wanted Heston, but he didn't get him. Yeah, if you skim-read the article you could go away thinking they got Shoot-First-Chuck.
    --
  • I still mirror this great email thread.... http://security.royans.net/info/posts/linux_is_obs olete.shtml [royans.net]
  • "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.
  • ..probably just a glimpse of some naked source code, you can get as much of that as you want on the web.
  • "Unix, Unix"

    is that a "Citizen Kane" reference? (rosebud, rosebud)

  • 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.

  • If Linus could only work on the kernel for a few hours after work, we wouldn't see 2.4 until at least 2002.

    That's precisely what he does. He isn't hacking the linux kernel at Transmeta, he's writing i86 emulators for their chips.

  • intermed. was into it a while ago, now getting back into it deeper(more advanced shell scripting, etc). I was just kidding with my comment though. I hope nobody took me seriously there. :)

  • ?!? (Score:1)

    by eghost ( 311291 )
    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...
  • Will the red latex BSD grrls be there?
    ---

  • unfortunately, no (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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.
  • Arnold is Austrian.

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