Free as in Freedom

I find Stallman and Linus a very interesting comparison, especially their motivations. Williams has done a good job of providing the reader insight into a leading thinker in our time. As with most leaders there are those who think he is a genius, those who think he is a fool and those who think he is evil. The choice is of course dependent upon how closely the leader agrees with the observer. "Free as In Freedom" paints what seems to be an accurate if not overly flattering portrait of RMS. He comes off as a brilliant but deeply wounded and vicious person. RMS describes those who disagree with his philosophy as engaging in evil. Not in doing something he believes is evil. The great contribution he made began as a temper tantrum as a result of people being hired away from the MIT AI Lab and Stallman not having access to tools that had been paid for and provided to him previously. One of the most remarkable facets about Stallman is that his temper has benefited so many people. Most of us just throw the & ^%##@ driver in the * & ^%##@ lake ! Stallman is a major contributor in our time and this is an excellent book. If you are interested in the Free Software/Open Source movement this is a must read.

I found Free as in Freedom in the library, Deweyed on the the same shelf as computer programming methodologies. Reading it has given me some strength to be more uncompromising in applying ethical convictions to life. One of the more interesting aspects of the story is the attitude that when you are in the right, you can wait and the rest of the world will come around to your point of view. As a software developer who has several times seen his work ignored by befuddled friends and family only to a few months later see similar ideas expressed in full page glossy adverts, I found this validating.

I really didn't have high expectations for this book, I figured it would be nothing more than a historical account of the accomplishments of RMS, I was dead wrong. "Free as in Freedom" looks at RMS from a personal and technical level. From his beginnings as an awkward boy in NYC, all the way to rise of the free software movement. I figured this book would be written from extremely pro-gnu standpoint, but I was pleasantly surprised to find an objective account of Richard's issues with the open source movement.

It's hard to be neutral about Richard Stallman. Some people love him--others hate him. But he's been the key player in the free software movement. This nicely written book helps us to understand what makes him tick, and why he is what he is. It goes back to his youth and even includes interviews with his mother. The book is by no means a defense of Stallman. Instead, it probes beneath the surface and chronicles the events that have made him such a prominent and sometimes enigmatic figure among free software and open source developers.While Stallman cooperated with the author, he has no financial connections with the book (to address the concerns of one reviewer here).

The reviewer who admittedly has not read the book also has no idea what context the author and Stallman use the word "free" in. This is "free" as in "freedom", as the title says. Not "free" as in "free beer", as they say.Stallman's views are basically for free information. The base price of free software can be one dollar or 1000 dollars. The source code for it must be available, though, and it must be made distributable for those who want it. The idea is that interested programmers can add, improve, and change around the program for the benefit of everyone.If we extend this purpose to include his book, as the reviewer implied, then it would still be completely valid. Source code (the English syntax) is available, so people can modify the book, and they can distribute it so that others can do the same. The base price can easily be [money]. The pricing is irrelevent if the other two conditions are met.I suppose that the reviewer would know these things if he was qualified to review the book (that is, if he had read it, which he admittedly has not).On the topic of the book itself, I enjoyed it immensely. It was definitely not too short, and most certainly not too long. It was just right for the type of story it was telling. The book focuses mostly on Stallman's life and his decisions and discoveries that he made that led him to start the Free Software Foundation.Throughout the book, it becomes clear that Stallman is a very gifted man (he learned Calculus when he was seven), but it wasn't until his college years that he really found his niche. When he did, his gifts became apparent, and his true potentials came out.I would encourage anyone who is interested in free or open-source software to read this book for the background on the man who started it all. His rationale is very thought-provoking, and makes you wonder about some of the other things in life that should be questioned, but now are simply taken for granted.