Free as in Freedom

Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software ( ISBN 0-596-00287-4 ) is a free book (licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License ) and is about the personal life of Richard Stallman , written by Sam Williams and published by O'Reilly Verlag on March 1, 2002.

Williams conducted several interviews with him, spoke to former classmates and colleagues of Stallman, and spoke to his mother while he was writing the book. The book received many positive reviews.

structure

The book is divided into a foreword, thirteen chapters, an afterword, three appendices and an index. A copy of the GFDL is enclosed with the book as addendum c.

License

Free as in Freedom was published under the GNU License for Free Documentation Version 1.1, which allows the modification and distribution of the text, the pictures in the book and the book cover (text, picture and design elements).

Writing process

The author himself wrote an article about the process of writing the work Free as in Freedom (FaiF for short), in which he explains how it came about to publish this book under a free license. Williams was also interviewed by OnLamp in 2002 about the work process on this plant.

On the shoulders of giants

In the book, Bob Young (founder of Red Hat ) supports the free software movement by saying that this enables people to stand on the shoulders of giants . He also says that standing on giants' shoulders is the opposite of reinventing the wheel.

An excerpt from the book:

“In the western scientific tradition we stand on the shoulders of giants,” says Young, echoing both Torvalds and Sir Isaac Newton before him. “In business, this translates to not having to reinvent wheels as we go along. The beauty of [the GPL] model is you put your code into the public domain. If you're an independent software vendor and you're trying to build some application and you need a modem-dialer, well, why reinvent modem dialers? You can just steal PPP off of Red Hat Linux and use that as the core of your modem-dialing tool. If you need a graphic tool set, you don't have to write your own graphic library. Just download GTK. Suddenly you have the ability to reuse the best of what went before. And suddenly your focus as an application vendor is less on software management and more on writing the applications specific to your customer's needs. "

“In the Western scientific tradition, we stand on the shoulders of giants,” says Young, repeating what Torvalds and Sir Isaac Newton said before him. “In business terms, this means that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. The beauty [of the GPL model] is to make your source code public. If you're an independent software company and you're trying to build an application and need modem dialing software, why develop one? You can easily steal PPP from Red Hat Linux and use it as the core for your modem dialing software. If you need a graphics toolbox, you don't need to write your own graphics library. Just download GTK. Suddenly you have the ability to reuse the best of what was there before. So suddenly your focus as an application developer is less on software management and more on developing the applications specifically according to the needs of your customers. "

Another excerpt from the book:

"Integrating GCC improved the performance of Linux. It also raised issues. Although the GPL's 'viral' powers didn't apply to the Linux kernel, Torvald's willingness to borrow GCC for the purposes of his own free software operating system indicated a certain obligation to let other users borrow back. As Torvalds would later put it: 'I had hoisted myself up on the shoulders of giants.' Not surprisingly, he began to think about what would happen when other people looked to him for similar support. "

“Integrating GCC with Linux improved its performance. But it also increased its problems. Although the 'viral' powers of the GPL did not apply to the Linux kernel, Torvald's willingness to borrow the GCC for the purpose of his own free operating system indicated a certain obligation to have it borrowed by other users as well. Just as Torvalds would later say: 'I have pulled myself up on the shoulders of giants.' Not surprisingly, he began to think about what might happen if other people looked at him for similar support. "

Encouragement

Andrew Leonard in Salon complimented Williams on the amount of new information he was discovering about Stallman, along with the vast amount of material that was already public. Leonard describes the book as a nuanced and detailed picture of Stallman.

In Computer User magazine , Jende Huang reports that the book is straightforward and wrote, “The juxtaposition of Stallman's public and private person is the incentive to read this book.” He sums up that the book “is worth reading for his chronological and important part of the free software movement as well as for the insight into the person of Stallman. "

In the Italian VITA , Bernardo Parrella describes that the “greatest merit” of Williams is his “new perspective” on the problems and dangers that apply to free software and the computer industry as a whole, to draw attention to his personal interviews with Stallman and his spelling, in which even complex technical developments would captivate. He noted that the book was an important "real-time" biography, full of references to other books, publications, and web links, all about a man who was often misunderstood and underestimated.

In a report for Sys-con, Mike McCallister describes the book as "a simple introduction to Stallman's career and ideas, but at this length it cannot shine with great depth." He notes that he finds one chapter "very funny" , but “everything is just too fleeting” in the book.