7mo ago

Works about free software.

I am looking for works about free software or based on this philosophy, there are books like "Free software for a free society" and documentaries like "Linux code", but I would like to know what other works there are related to free software and this philosophy, there are things like snow crash, which talks about the decentralization of the internet from a fictional and futuristic story, these types of works are also valid.

27 comments

Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

Off the topic of my head, maybe these can get you started:
Hackers, by Stephen Levy
The Hacker Ethic, by Pekka Himanen
True Names, by Vernor Vinge
Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig
A Fire Upon The Deep (SF novel), by Vernor Vinge

How about this?
The Cathedral and the Bazaar : Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric Raymond,
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-cathedral-and-the-bazaar-musings-on-linux-and-open-source-by-an-accidental-revolutionary-9780596001087
It's from 1997 but addresses some of what you mentioned. Things have changed a lot since it was written though, so just keep that in mind.
- On a similar note:
  In the Beginning... Was the Command Line
- Raymond is a fucking fascist.
  
  Plus he's one of the "open source" rebrand types, so as not to scare the ~~hoes~~ corporations with too much scary "free software" hippie communism.
  
  First time hearing this and at face value he sounds like an asshole but I don't see how it's relevant to free software. The book itself is a classic which is still worth reading.
  FOSS attracts a lot of strong personalities. Stallman is a weirdo but everyone still uses GCC and I'm still personally using emacs.

If "Snow Crash" counts, you probably want to look into the novels "Daemon" and especially its sequel "Freedom" by Daniel Suarez. Probably also the novel "Walkaway" by Corey Doctorow.
"The Internet's Own Boy" is a documentary about Aaron Swartz that I suspect would also scratch your itch. (Available on Archive.org)
Edit: Almost forgot The Public Domain by James Boyle. I haven't read that one yet, but it's high on my list.
- Also Doctorow’s novella “Unauthorized Bread”.
- Is "The Public Domain" public domain? Or proprietay?
  
  It's published under a CC BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license, according to Wikipedia. (Look at the "written works" section.)

The biography of Richard Stallman is a good read

Don't forget the GPL itself.

One of the best quotes about Free Software, was how it is essentially using the same principles as Judo, use the opponents momentum against them.
The way Free Software uses full, restrictive copyright to create a permissive, free sharing-based copyright is an excellent example of the technique within many Judo throws.
I can't remember where this quote was from, and a quick search found nothing. Maybe someone else can pinpoint it.
- Pretty sure that's also from Raymond, who is racists af, see my other comment.

Revolution OS(2001) was maybe the earliest documentary about Free Software.
This was great to view at LinuxConf2001, seeing many of the names you'd only read about previously.
Warning: It interviews various people discussed in this thread, but also contains plenty of Stallman being right.

snow crash, which talks about the decentralization of the internet from a fictional and futuristic story
I don't remember it prominently featuring a plotline like that. That was the one with
\ ::: spoiler spoiler the nam shub or whatever? And hacking people's brain's with, basically, NLP? ::: Well if that counts, then Neuromancer by William Gibson fits in that it's about
\ ::: spoiler spoiler removing DRM ("Turing Locks") from AI—legit AI too, not the hallucinating parlor tricks of today. ::: 😏
- At first, I wasn't going to mention snow crash, since it doesn't have much to do with it, but I made the mention to make room for stories that don't have much to do with free software, but have things that can be related to philosophy, an example of this could be right to read, of course, ignoring the author's notes
- PS Please do tell how to read the ":::".
  Thanks!
  
  Those are supposed to be part of the spoiler tag, but many lemmy clients don't support those yet.