The Code: Story of GNU and Linux (2001) Complete Documentary
An Anonymous Coward writes:
I was browsing my media and decided to rewatch this, as I hadn't looked at it in fifteen years or so.
I was mainly struck by the unalloyed optimism of pretty much everyone who contributed, including Linus, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Alan Cox, Ted T'so, Eric Allman and many other original neckbeards (I use that appellation affectionately, and in a bunch of cases, literally).
In the 20-plus years since the film was released, much has changed.
I think much of the optimism embodied by RMS and the FSF has waned a good deal (and more's the pity), and the complete reversal of Microsoft from Ballmer's "Free Software is communism" to Nadella's embrace of GNU/Linux in both Azure and WSL, to the co-opting of Linux for Google/Android, as well as aging and slow drift towards retirement/death/irrelevance of those who championed Free Software for nearly four decades have really hurt the movement, while boosting Open Source.
I think that refocusing on "free as in beer" instead of "free as in freedom" across the development community may have been inevitable as GNU/Linux (although I guess it could have been GNU/Hurd or one of the BSDs) became mainstream a couple decades after the commoditization of IBM PC-like hardware.
That got me thinking, where does that leave us and "who are the new neckbeards tht can carry the vision of Free Software into the middle of the century?" Are there really any such folks with the passion and drive to champion Free Software moving forward?
Or is Free Software (as originally defined and advocated for by RMS and the FSF) dying a slow death in favor of "Open Source" and more permissive licenses like MIT and Apache?
What will Open Source look like in 2050, 52 years after Bruce Perens and the OSI's Open Source definition?
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