Revolution OS Full Length with Multiple Subtitles

Revolution OS is a documentary which traces the history of GNU, Linux, and the open source and free software movements. It features several interviews with prominent hackers and entrepreneurs (and hackers-cum-entrepreneurs), including Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, Frank Hecker and Brian Behlendorf.

The film begins in medias res with an IPO, and then sets the historical stage by showing the beginnings of software development back in the day when software was shared on paper tape for the price of the paper itself. It then segues to Bill Gates's Open Letter to Hobbyists in which he asks Computer Hobbyists to not share, but to buy software. (This letter was written by Gates when Microsoft was still based in Arizona and spelled "Micro-Soft".)

Richard Stallman then explains how and why he left the MIT Lab for Artificial Intelligence in order to devote his life to the development of free software, as well as how he started with the GNU project. Linus Torvalds is interviewed on his development of the Linux kernel as well as on the GNU/Linux naming controversy and Linux's further evolution, including its commercialization. Richard Stallman remarks on some of the ideological aspects of open source vis-á-vis Communism and capitalism and well as on several aspects of the development of GNU/Linux.

Michael Tiemann (interviewed in a desert) tells how he met Stallman and got an early version of Stallman's GCC and founded Cygnus Solutions. Larry Augustin tells how he combined the resulting GNU software and a normal PC to create a UNIX-like Workstation which cost one third the price of a workstation by Sun Microsystems even though it was three times as powerful.

His narrative includes his early dealings with venture capitalists, the eventual capitalization and commodification of Linux for his own company, VA Linux, and ends with its IPO. Frank Hecker of Netscape tells how Netscape executives released the source code for Netscape's browser, one of the signal events which made Open Source a force to be reckoned with by business executives, the mainstream media, and the public at large.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Revolution
• OS
• documentary
• free
• software

[Doesumama]

@Blackouti386 Your argument was balanced until "open source is still mostly garbage software with the majority of good software being proprietary.".

[Geebsee]

@Blackouti386

You shouldn't be considering whether most good software is proprietary. You should ask: which proportion of proprietary software is "good"? How does free software compare? I don't know the answer to that question, and you presumably don't either. It is factually incorrect, though, to state that free software doesn't work. The amount of Ubuntu-users increased from 8 mill in 2008 to 12 mill in 2010.

[Blackouti386]

I like how the woman reading Bill Gates letter slowly starts sounding angry and then builds up in anger as she reads a perfectly calm letter written by Bill Gates.

The whole time the background music is playing and rising with the readers temper giving the impression that Bill Gates is just a greedy, angry programmer rather then the genius and pioneer that he is.

His argument was right and open source is still mostly garbage software with the majority of good software being proprietary.