Revolution OS - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Revolution OS is a 2001 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

that traces the twenty-year history of GNU

GNU

GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...

, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

, and the free software movement

Free software movement

The free software movement is a social and political movement with the goal of ensuring software users' four basic freedoms: the freedom to run their software, to study and change their software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. The alternative terms "software libre", "open...

.

Directed by J. T. S. Moore

J. T. S. Moore

J.T.S. Moore is American film director and producer. Along with an undergraduate degree in history from Stanford University, Moore also graduated from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts with a Master's degree in film production. He's known primarily for Revolution OS...

, the film features interviews with prominent hackers and entrepreneurs including Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman

Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...

, Michael Tiemann

Michael Tiemann

Michael Tiemann is Vice President of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat Inc, as well as President of the Open Source Initiative. He previously was the Chief Technical Officer of Red Hat...

, Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds

Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator...

, Larry Augustin

Larry Augustin

Larry Augustin is CEO of SugarCRM and is a former venture capitalist and the co-founder and former chairman of VA Software, now known as Geeknet. He founded VA Research, the predecessor to that company, in 1993 while a Ph.D...

, Eric S. Raymond

Eric S. Raymond

Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...

, Bruce Perens

Bruce Perens

Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric S...

, Frank Hecker and Brian Behlendorf

Brian Behlendorf

Brian Behlendorf is a technologist, computer programmer, and an important figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Group, which later became the Apache...

Synopsis

The film begins with glimpses of Raymond, a Linux IPO

Initial public offering

An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

, Torvalds, the idea of Open Source, Perens, Stallman, then sets the historical stage in the early days of hackers and computer hobbyists when code was shared freely. It discusses how change came in 1978 as Bill Gates

Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...

, in his Open Letter to Hobbyists

Open Letter to Hobbyists

The Open Letter to Hobbyists was an open letter written by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, to early personal computer hobbyists, in which Gates expresses dismay at the rampant copyright infringement taking place in the hobbyist community, particularly with regard to his company's...

, pointedly prodded hobbyists to pay up. Stallman relates his struggles with proprietary software vendors at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, leading to his departure to focus on the development of free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

, and the GNU project

GNU Project

The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced on September 27, 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. It initiated GNU operating system development in January, 1984...

.

Torvalds describes the development of the Linux kernel

Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....

, the GNU/Linux naming controversy

GNU/Linux naming controversy

The GNU/Linux naming controversy is a dispute among members of the free and open source software community over how to refer to the computer operating system commonly called Linux....

, Linux's further evolution, and its commercialization.

Raymond and Stallman clarify the philosophy of free software versus communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

and capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

, as well as the development stages of Linux.

Michael Tiemann discusses meeting Stallman in 1987, getting an early version of Stallman's GCC

GNU Compiler Collection

The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

, and founding Cygnus Solutions

Cygnus Solutions

Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software...

.

Larry Augustin describes combining GNU

GNU

GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...

software with a normal PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

to create a Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

workstation

Workstation

A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...

at one third the price and twice the power of a Sun

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

workstation. He relates his early dealings with venture capitalists, the eventual capitalization and commodification of Linux for his own company, VA Linux, and its IPO.

Brian Behlendorf, one of the original developers of the Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...

, explains that he started to exchange patches

Patch (computing)

A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...

for the NCSA web server daemon with other developers, which led to the release of "a patchy" webserver, dubbed Apache.

Frank Hecker of Netscape

Netscape

Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...

discusses the events leading up to Netscape's executives releasing the source code for Netscape's browser, one of the signal events which made open source

Open source

a force to be reckoned with by business executives, the mainstream media, and the public at large. This point was validated further after the film's release as the Netscape source code eventually became the Firefox web browser, reclaiming a large percentage of market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...

.

The film also documents the scope of the first full-scale LinuxWorld Summit conference, with appearances by Linus Torvalds and Larry Augustin on the keynote stage.

Much of the footage for the film was shot in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

Screenings

The film appeared in several film festivals including South by Southwest

South by Southwest

South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...

, the Atlanta Film and Video Festival, Boston Film Festival

Boston Film Festival

Boston Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Boston in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It has been held annually since 1984, usually in early September....

, and Denver International Film Festival; it won Best Documentary at both the Savannah Film and Video Festival and the Kudzu Film Festival.

Quotes

Reception

Critical reviews varied widely, from approving to dismissive – including Internet reviewers, the composite is neutral to negative. Every review noted the historical significance of the information, and those that noticed found the production values high, but the presentation of history mainly too dry, even resembling a lecture. Ron Wells of Film Threat
Film Threat
Film Threat is a former print magazine and, now, webzine which focuses primarily on independent film, although it also reviews DVDs of mainstream films and Hollywood movies in theaters. It first appeared as a photocopied zine in 1985, created by Wayne State University students Chris Gore and André...

found the film important, worthwhile, and well thought out for explaining the principles of the free software and open source concepts. Noting its failure to represent on camera any debate with representatives of the proprietary software camp, Wells gave the film 4 of 5 stars. TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

rated the film 3 of 4 stars: "surprisingly exciting", "fascinating" and "sharp looking" with a good soundtrack.
Daily Variety saw the film as "targeted equally at the techno-illiterate and the savvy-hacker crowd;" educating and patting one group on the head, and canonizing the other, but strong enough for an "enjoyable" recommendation.

On the negative side, the New York Times faulted the film's one-sidedness, found its reliance on jargon "fairly dense going", and gave no recommendation.
Internet Reviews found it "a didactic and dull documentary glorifying software anarchy. Raging against Microsoft and Sun. . .", lacking follow-through on Red Hat and VALinux stock (in 2007, at 2% of peak value), with "lots of talking heads". Toxicuniverse.com noted "Revolution OS blatantly serves as infomercial and propaganda. Bearded throwback to the sixties, hacker Richard Stallman serves as the movement's spiritual leader while Scandinavian Linus Torvalds acts as its mild mannered chief engineer (as developer of the Linux kernel)."

To Tim Lord, reviewing for Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...

, the film is interesting and worthy of viewing, with some misgivings: it is "about the growth of the free software movement, and its eventual co-option by the open source movement. . . it was supposed to be about Linux and its battle about Microsoft, but the movie is quickly hijacked by its participants." The film "lacks the staple of documentaries: scenes with multiple people that are later analyzed individually by each of the participants" (or indeed, much back-and-forth at all). Linux itself and its benefits are notably missing, and, "[w]e are never shown anyone using Linux, except for unhappy users at an Installfest." The debate over Linux vs Windows is missing, showing the origin of the OS only as a response to proprietary and expensive Sun

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

and DEC

Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

software and hardware, and its growth solely due to the Apache web server. And Lord notes that the film shows, but does not challenge Torvalds or Stallman about their equally disingenuous remarks about the "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux" naming issue