movies, open source, RMS and linux...

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Brad Parker wrote: The refreshing thing about the film is that you don't have any ego or one-upmanship apparent in the interviews. Stallman is very complimentary about Torvalds and speaks highly of his contribution. He also very rationally explains how it came to be that they made all these excellent GNU tools but didn't have a kernel by the time Linus made his, and then how people put the two together to form a perfect marriage and have a full free *-nix OS. I'd heard that Stallman was pissed that Linus got all the credit, but that didn't come off at all in the film. And now that I have a much better understanding of the whole story (I must admit I never really followed it) I see now how Stallman does have a point regarding who should get the real credit for Linux. They both do really. Anyway, I've still go 40 minutes to watch so maye the mudslinging happens later on in the film. As far as fanaticism and propaganda, Bruce Perens comes off as the most obnoxious in that vein. He takes a few opportunities to slam Microsoft, and while it is deserved, some of it is a bit over the top, like his claim that Microsoft was the compnay that started the whole proprietary software thing. I suppose he's never heard of IBM, as one example? The film is available through Netflix (highly recommended...say BYE BYE Blockbuster). -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]