When I first saw this on the shelf at the store I thought that it had a strong potential to just be a "feel-good" movie geared only towards those in the open source movement.But after watching it, I feel like this is a documentary that I could show my parents so that they can better understand the Open Source Community that I call myself a member of.This movie provides a very good introduction to what drove software programmers of the 70s into the idea of freely available source code. I thought I new most of the history, but a lot of what Richard Stallman and Bruce Perens talk about enlightened me. I feel like I know understand the open source community better and get the big picture. Even though I thought I knew the big picture before.

A nice documentary about the open source software revolution. None of the material presented here will come as a surprise to the computer techies out there, but the interview format of the film does give a feel for the personalities involved, including Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Bruce Perens, and Eric Raymond. What is most intriguing is how each person is portrayed as feeling that their contribution to the open source community stands out as the most important part of the revolution: Torvalds' Linux, Stallman's GNU Project, Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Perens' "Open Source Definition", and Behlendorf's Apache. Whether these people truly feel this way or whether it is attributable to creative editing is an exercise left to the viewer.

"Revolution OS" starts off strong by allowing several important and articulate people to explain how and why they became involved with free and open source software. It uses these interviews very effectively to reveal the ideas, personalities, and history behind free software, open source, and Linux. Unfortunately, after this broad and detailed introduction, it ignores all implications of open source and free software except one: the impact of Linux on the commercial software market, and more specifically, the fate of "Linux companies" in the tech crash. Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable and worthy film.Complaints first. Unfortunately, "Revolution OS" is a short film, and it devotes a disproportionate amount of time to the emergence of Linux-related companies and the precipitous rise and then fall of their stock prices. Although it may be hard now to imagine someone seeing this film without already knowing that story, it's misleading for the film to present this spectacle without making it clear that these stocks were only a few of hundreds of computer stocks that shared the same fate. By devoting so much time to the buildup of commercial excitement about Linux and then concluding the film with the collapse of Linux company share prices, "Revolution OS" gives the impression that the recent history of Linux is contained in the boom-bust story of Linux stocks, leaving the uninformed viewer to conclude -- what? That the stock market has rendered final judgment on the value of open source? That the apparent importance of Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds was just a delusion of tech-crazed investors?This distorted presentation is apparently due to the filmmakers' lack of understanding that the open source and free software phenomena have significance beyond Linux's impact on the commercial software market. So many other avenues could have been explored: the economic and social impact of the availability of free software in developing nations; perspectives from the economic theory of information; the utility of the ongoing creation of useful software by open source development teams; the applicability of licenses such as the GNU General Public License to everything that can be seen as information, including musical compositions and other intellectual creations; and last but certainly not least, the contributions of free software and open source ideas (and their opponents' ideas) to debates over intellectual property, perhaps the defining issue of this generation.Simply mentioning some of these ways in which the free software and open source movements have the potential to influence society would have paid sufficient respect to the complexity of the subject, but after allotting generous time to philosophical and historical exposition, the filmmakers inexplicably revert to the simplistic public perception of Linux circa 2001: a bunch of geeks who almost got rich. In fact, if you only saw the last third of "Revolution OS", you would think it was a mock-affectionate eulogy for Linux geeks' dot-com dreams.On the up side, the stars of "Revolution OS" are treated fairly, and their foibles generate plenty of humor, especially their ego clashes. When Richard Stallman accepts an award named after Linus Torvalds, he unleashes a simile about Torvalds' role in the success of Linux that left me laughing at its cleverness, Stallman's baldness in demanding his share of credit, and the (probably justified) assumption he makes of his audience's intimate familiarity with "Star Wars.""Revolution OS" also deserves credit for the care it takes to portray the differences and disagreements between individuals, their common ground, and their varying attitudes toward unfree software. Merely recognizing that the difference between free software and open source software is important enough to present to a lay audience puts this movie in my good graces.Overall, "Revolution OS" will be better understood and appreciated by people who are already familiar with the subject matter. Non-geeks, however, will find considerable enlightenment, especially if they follow up by reading _The Cathedral and the Bazaar_ (which is available on the web) and the articles by Richard Stallman and others on the "Philosophy of the GNU Project" page at the GNU web site.

"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" has become a modern classic, and I enjoyed the author's appearance. I'd never seen Stallman or Torvalds on the screen, either.Totally uninteresting, possibly even devastatingly horrible and excruciatingly boring, to anyone who hasn't spent some time using and writing free software. Most of target audience probably lives in the Valley, plus a few exclusive pockets of geekdom in major cities throughout the world. You know who you are, hang your heads in shame while you watch.