Free as in Freedom

This work interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. It looks at how the twists and turns in the software marketplace have done little to throw Stallman off his pedestal.

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This text interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. Starting with how it all began - a desire for software code from Xerox to make the printing more efficient - to the continuing quest for free software that still exists today. The goal of the book is to document how Stallman's own personal evolution has done much to shape notions of what free software is and should be. Like Alan Greenspan in the financial sector, Stallman has assumed the role of tribal elder in a community that bills itself as anarchic and immune to central authority. This book looks at how the latest twists and turns in the software marketplace have done little to throw Stallman off his pedestal. Discover how Richard's childhood and teenage experiences as well as his years at Harvard and MIT made him the man he is today. The book's narrative style includes many quotes from Richard and his mother about his life, education, and work providing a look at RMS and Free Software Foundation (FSF).
Throughout the book are insights from FSF supporters, detractors, the early MIT hackers, and those who knew him in high school and college. If anything, the current software marketplace has made Stallman's logic-based rhetoric and immovable personality more persuasive. In a rapidly changing world people need a fixed reference point, and Stallman has become that reference point for many in the software world.