Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman

by Richard M. Stallman and Joshua Gay

Book Overview

"This book collects the writing of Richard Stallman in a manner that will makeits subtlety and power clear. The essays span a wide range, from copyright tothe history of the free software movement.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1441436855
• ISBN13: 9781441436856
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Createspace
• Length: 223 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Book to understand the Free Software movement and the principles that guide it.

This is the book to read to learn about the roots, the history of the Free Software movement started by Richard Stallman in the early 1980's. Here in a single book are explained all the major principles of Free software. Also you can find the history of the GNU General Public license or GNU GPL for short. This is the most widely used free software license. The origin of the GNU operating system and its variant the GNU/Linux operating system is also covered. The importance of the Free software movement can not be overstated. It is the Free software movement and its leading organization the Free Software Foundation that inspired other groups that have its origins in it such as the "Open source" movement. The books explains the effects of copyright laws and patent law on innovation and society. A must read. I fully recommend it.

A must read for any Stallman fan

`Free Software, Free Society', a short, yet poignant book by renowned software freedom activist Richard Stallman demonstrates the importance of free software in society, a movement in which he has actively participated since joining a software-sharing community at MIT in 1971. Since then, Stallman has both advocated the importance and raised awareness of free software, battling copyright and founding clever terms such as "copyleft" and even "free software" itself. His book first describes GNU (Gnu's Not Unix), a free adaptation of the Unix operating system that Stallman created to promote a community of cooperative hackers. He also makes certain to precisely define his terms; Stallman both explains free software is `free as in freedom', not in price, and also distinguishes between the seemingly synonymous words of `free' and `open'. Richard Stallman later introduces the concept of `copyleft' (a method which mandates that software obtained from the public domain be passed along for others to further copy or change it) and analyzes problems and misinterpretations of copyright, explaining, for example, how copyright is not a natural right guaranteed by the Constitution, but rather a government-imposed monopoly. Stallman ends the book with a collection of miscellaneous, but relevant topics, such as `words to avoid' and GNU licensing. Overall, I found Free Software, Free Society both interesting and informative. As one might expect, Richard Stallman does not write like most authors. Instead of employing a `style that sells' (i.e. "decorating" the book with irrelevant information or references in order to appeal to the largest audience possible), Stallman writes what he believes, regardless of whether it fits public opinion. He is articulate, strong, and convincing: he has a clear goal of informing the reader of everything related to the free software movement, and he draws from his own experience to support his stand. Although the book maintains an informative style, it is not written for the technical savvy (and for the basic understanding Stallman assumes the reader has, there is a section in the beginning of the book that reviews the fundamentals of software and computers). Of course, this does, at times, make the book feel more like a student textbook, though I nevertheless remained interested throughout the entire text. In short, I would undoubtedly recommend Free Software, Free Society to anyone with even a remote interest in computers, the internet, or law.

CS Major Philosophy

Very good philosophy book on the reasons behind the free software movement. A very good read to understand Stallman, who after all, brought forth the Gnu project. Almost every computer has some piece of Gnu Public License software on it now, so it makes sense to read, even if you are a Windows or Macintosh person.

Essential Reading for any Intelligent Adult Favoring Social Progress

I bought this book at Hackers on Planet Earth 6, and then after reading it in the morning, had the double benefit of hearing the author as keynote speaker in the afternoon. He is everything the book's contents suggest, and more. The author is one of the original MIT hackers (pick up a used copy of Shirley Turkle's "My Second Self, Computers and the Human Spirit" and/or Steven Levy's "Hacker's" which the author himself recommends. The author's brilliant bottom line is quite clear throughout the book: software copyright prevents people from improving or sharing the foundation for progress in the digital era. The author's social-technical innovation, which appears now to be acquiring tsunami force around the world, and is manifested in the Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) movement that is being nurtured by governments worldwide from Brazil to China to Israel to the United Kingdom to Norway, is to modify copyright to a term he credits to another, copyleft, meaning that copyright in the new definition grants ALL permissions EXCEPT the permission to RESTRICT the enhancement and sharing of the software. The author is also very careful to define the term free as meaning freedom of movement and growth, not free of price. GNU, his invention, removes computational obstacles to competition, and levels the playing field for more important innovations. In his view, the core issue is not about price, but about eliminating restrictions to freedom of sharing and enhancement. On page 37 he sums up his life's purpose: "Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners having a fist fight (during the race)" -- they all lose. The author carefully distinguishes between the free and open source software, citing the first as a movement with values, the second as a process. His candidacy for a Nobel Prize is captured in the sentence on page 61, "Free software contributes to human knowledge, non-free software does not." Across the book, a collection of essays put into a very well ordered (not necessarily chronological) form, this book is a history of GNU (not UNIX) by its creator and co-founder of the Free Software Foundation. It is replete with concise useful discussions of terms, conditions, and cultures relevant to the future of mankind as a thinking forward looking species. Section two, on copyright, copyleft, and patents is very helpful, and likely to become a standard in the field as the public fires elected representatives who sell out to Mickey Mouse copyright extenders, and demands a return to the original Constitutional limitation of copyright as an artifact of government, not a natural right, focused on nurturing knowledge. It means mention that Lawrence Lessig (see my reviews of his books) writes the introduction--the two authors together, along with Cass Sunstein, may be the most important trio of thinkers with respect to the future of man in the context of science, copyright, risk, and software as a human global contributor to

Nice Explanations

The editor wrote a short forward explaining all the computer concepts the reader will need in order to understand the book. In addition, there are footnotes throughout the book explaining obscure people and computer terms. This way even a sociology major like myself can understand everything. Stallman talks about important issues that are currently being played out in Washington DC. This book is a great way to help make sense of it all.