Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade 609
| Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade | |
| author | Sam Williams |
| pages | 225 |
| publisher | O'Reilly |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Danny Yee |
| ISBN | 0-596-00287-4 |
| summary | Life of Stallman |
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.
Argumentum ad Verecundiam (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
RMS (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing that if not for a few people, Richard would be stil slightly controversial, but pretty globally respected, in the general slashdot community.
The cult of personality (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the Internet became ubiquitous RMS was pretty much a lone voice in the wilderness. There were a lot of people like myself who thought it somewhat off that academics could develop software with public money and then sell it for personal profit.
The Web took off because of open source, but without the RMS ideology. The original CERN libwww was pure public domain with no restrictions whatsoever. In retrospect we really should have at least required applications to inform the end user of the source. If we had done that NCSA would have had to at least mention CERN in the documentation, and the fact that CERN had provided most of the lines of code. Had we actually protected outrselves against Marc's plagarism then we might not have got kicked out of CERN.
What I absolutely have no regrets about is the complete lack of any viral clauses.
People complain about Microsoft and others ripping off my ideas for profit. Well heck, first I am not exactly doing baddly these days. But more importantly I want my ideas to be used.
Even attribution is not such a big issue. I realised that it was useful for there to be a US citizen that the notoriously xenophobic US media could project as the inventor of the Web. What I did not anticipate was that he would then hire a major PR firm to promote himself as the sole visionary behind the Web and attempt to erase Tim and the rest of us from history.
Re:How exactly is Stallman interesting? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Argumentum ad Verecundiam (Score:2, Interesting)
Furthermore, and this is just a general pet peeve of mine, why is it acceptable to listen to the advice of someone with economic/business background but no technical background? Why should someone who has no technical background, has never written a line of code, has no concept of how much difference a code engineer can make, acceptable to comment on the impact of free vs. commercial software. Note that I am not saying the poster is making the claim, but there seems to be the general sense that you need a business/economic background to run a business or comment on a business decision (ie, the use of free vs. commercial software), but you do not need a technical background. Richard Stallman is very intelligent. I think it is incredibly closed-minded to assume he cannot understand economics or that he knows nothing about it. Further, GM may very well put its best engineer as the companies CEO. Let's not forget how many engineers/technical people have built (and led) very profitable businesses. Here are some examples: HP (as it was when Hewlett and Packard ran it), Bill Gates, Red Hat (I understand he is a computer programmer, but I may be wrong). The list goes on. It is foolish to automatically disregard someone who knows a great deal about the type of business a business is in just because he/she does not have a business background...
Re:Argumentum ad Verecundiam (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Free as in free to use but restricted (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:RMS (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, think of this on the same terms as you think about religion or christianity. Christianity says greed is one of the 10 worst sins. Yet our entire economy, and capitalism, is based on the pursuit of greed. So while christianity tells everyone that its immoral and wrong you don't hear anyone complaining about christianity, do you? There are the few that voice their opinions against the religion, but generally people leave it alone. I don't see how the FSF is any different. The Free Software Movement is a religion. Everyone following it accepts and agrees that information needs to be free if we are to accomplish anything on our own, such as writing a whole operating system with enough functionality to compete with world class corporations. And GNU/Linux more than competes. And guess what it cost? Nothing because it was all done by volunteers. Proof that greed is not necessary.
I'm not a christian. And I rarely contribute to free software (because I'm stupid), but RMS is one of my heros.
If you owe your lifelihood to the pursuit of money maybe you should take a step back from your life and reevaluate your priorities. Believe it or not there was a time when humans survived without working for Microsoft. But we're too civil for that, aren't we. I don't know about you, but I wasn't always working for the man. And I certainly don't own him my livelihood. I can make a living anywhere I damn well please, doing anything I feel like. It just so happens that being a sys admin is much easier and makes 20 times as much as moving sand bags. But if I was moving sand bags I wouldn't have a sore back right now, think about that for a moment. I've become lazy all because I'm expected to be some educated professional, when in fact I'm nothing more than an intelligent human, which isn't saying a whole lot. Our livelihoods should not be based on the work we do. But that's a whole different arguement.
Re:broken record? (Score:1, Interesting)
If he'd start preaching something that wasn't so wrong, people might be inclined to listen to him on a larger scale.
The bottom line of his rhetoric is so offensive to business and people at large, that no one cares to listen to him. Most people are smart enough, that even if they aren't smart enough to argue with him, they can see where his logic leads right from start, and stop listening.
People want to be paid for creativity. Intellectual property is so basic, that even if you aren't a leading economist, anthropologist, or author, you see the wisdom inherent in intellectual property, and see the "dumbfuckery" (to quote another poster) of the GPL and Stallman.
Choice is good, and preaching that we should at least think about sharing some of our ideas is good. Preaching that no one should claim these rights, and everyone should be forced to give away their work for free is lunacy, and of course no one listens to him.
He is wrong.
Re:I would like Stallman more... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:How exactly is Stallman interesting? (Score:1, Interesting)
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.