Resumo de Freedom - SAM WILLIAMS

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 Linux World, 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 Eben Moglen, John Gilmore, Eric Raymond, and Lawrence Lessig; it
also suggests that Stallman''s personality may be inseparable from his
achievements.

Although I had already been involved with free software advocacy for some
time, 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 why the strange bearded man they''d just met was
so important. 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: the entire book is available online, under
the GNU Free Documentation License, along with errata and other information.

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