Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software

Portada
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009 M12 30 - 264 páginas
FREE AS IN FREEDOM 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 exists today. It is a movement that Stallman has at turns defined, directed and manipulated. 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. FREE AS IN FREEDOM looks at how the latest twists and turns in the software marketplace have done little to throw Stallman off his pedestal. Discover how the Richard's childhood and teenage experiences made him the man he is today. If anything, they have 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. *** Free as in Freedom is distributed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Money raised from the sale of this book supports the development of free software and documentation. *** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sam Williams is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He has covered high-tech culture, specifically software development culture, for a number of Web sites. From 1998-2001, he wrote "Open Season," a weekly column on the open source software community for Upside Today. He also has conducted interviews for the Web site BeOpen.com.

Otras ediciones - Ver todas

Acerca del autor (2009)

Sam Williams is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He has covered high-tech culture, specifically software development culture, for a number of Web sites. From 1998-2001, he wrote "Open Season," a weekly column on the open source software community for Upside Today. He also has conducted interviews for the Web site BeOpen.com. *** Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated "rms", is an American software freedom activist, and computer programmer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project, he initiated the free software movement and, in October 1985, set up the Free Software Foundation. Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license. Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely-used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989.

Información bibliográfica