

FSF announces publication of two new books by Richard Stallman - Tsiolkovsky
http://www.fsf.org/news/rms-newbooks

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StudyAnimal
Two minor points. 1\. The are not really new books. Both are new editions of
older books. 2\. One of the books is not by Richard Stallman, it is his
biography written by someone else.

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bitdiddle
definitely, both worth reading also especially for the historical context. I
found the whole section on the Symbolics machine quite interesting as I was
working on one at the time and was completely unaware at what was happening at
the Mit lab.

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jarin
I've downloaded and converted the PDFs to .mobi so I can read them on my
Kindle.

~~~
listic
What's wrong with PDF support on Kindle?

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msbarnett
PDFs are just a terrible eBook format. They bake in a fixed page size, usually
8.5x11 inches.

The Kindle's screen being physically smaller than that, your display options
are limited to scaling an image of the 8.5x11 page down to fit into 4.8x3.6
screen, at which point fonts are generally too small to read, or attempting to
reflow the PDF's contents on-the-fly, which is noticeably slow and typically
only gives acceptable results if the PDF contained an absolute minimum of
formatting.

~~~
100tonmantis
Kindle DX should display a 8.5x11 pdf correctly. I haven't used one personally
though.

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J-L
There's a bug in the online shop - the "add to cart" button for the first book
doesn't work (second one does).

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mleonhard
I think Richard Stallman would be more effective at getting his message across
if his personal appearance was more in-line with the preferences of mainstream
society.

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pnathan
Yeah, man looks at the outward. Unfortunately.

I suspect that RMS's message would be rejected however he dressed: it is
antithetical to many/most forms of business as we know it in the US.

Actually, from what I've read of RMS, I'm not even sure how he envisions
successful business to operate.

~~~
bitdiddle
I'm not sure what you mean, are you saying one can't make money using GPL
software? Are you saying programmers can't charge for their labor? What
message are you referring to?

I see many successful businesses, for example IBM, making money hand over fist
using Linux. Linux of course is "free software".

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pohl
Is there a sufficiently free license under which we can modify and republish
the text?

~~~
sandal
I dug around for a while looking for this as well, since it was absent from
the main announcement. But the ordering page for both books allows you to
download a PDF immediately, without charge.

It looks like Free as in Freedom 2.0 is under the GNU Free Documentation
License 1.3, and Free Software, Free Society allows verbatim copying by
anyone, and translation by those who have been approved by the FSF (i.e. it is
not a free documentation license)

Not sure how you get at the actual manuscripts, you may need to contact FSF
for that.

EDIT: Here are the links to the PDFs

<http://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs-ii-2.pdf>
<http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/faif-2.0.pdf>

~~~
pohl
_Free Software, Free Society allows verbatim copying by anyone, and
translation by those who have been approved by the FSF_

Thank you for sharing what you found.

I can't, in good conscience, read a book that only allows modification and
redistribution by those in a privileged class.

Our basic liberties are under assault here!

~~~
ekidd
To be fair to Stallman, he has always distinguished between "functional"
works, such as technical manuals and encyclopedias, and works which express a
specific person's opinion.

In the former case, Stallman believes that it's useful to modify works: You
might want to update a technical manual for a new version of the software, or
you might want to fix articles in the encyclopedia.

But in the latter case, you're generally not inconvenienced by the fact that
you can't edit someone's written opinions. So in these cases, Stallman tends
to favor licenses which allow copying, but not modification.

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nddrylliog
Let's hope he can write better than he speaks.

edit: Oh come one downvoters. Stallman has done great things, and his
scriptures are as interesting as the next guy. But he should stop trying to
give conferences in French (and probably conferences as a whole). See the open
letter someone wrote him recently - it was spot-on.

~~~
gwern
Your comment is maliciously intended and adds nothing to any conversation.

Further, if you genuinely wondered as to whether he is a better prosodist than
speaker, Stallman is a prolific author with many essays and articles available
online which you could read & judge.

(My own take, having read the originals of both books covered by the OP, is
that Stallman is a perfectly readable writer. He will never win awards for his
style, but he does not grate on the ear.)

~~~
nddrylliog
ma·li·cious /məˈliSHəs/ Adjective: Characterized by malice; intending or
intended to do harm.

I don't think my comment qualifies as malicious. It might be an uncomfortable
truth, that he's really not that fit for public speech and that his time is
better spent writing programs and literature.

(Also, what does <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prosody> has to do
with writing free software ideology? Last time I checked, he wrote in prose.)

~~~
gwern
Your comment was not meant in a spirit of helpful critique, saying either that
Stallman could work on his oratory or should optimize and spend his time
writing more. I'll quote your original comment: "Let's hope he can write
better than he speaks."

(As for 'prosody', yes, my bad. I was misled by 'poesy' and 'prose'.)

~~~
nddrylliog
Well, you do make a point.

My original comment would've been funny to anyone having seen him give a
speech in French. But it wasn't really helpful indeed. The open letter from
Alexey, though was helpful <http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-stallman-the-
aftermath> \- but it's not like Richie is going to listen anyway (his response
was a pirouette, and not subtle at that: <http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-
stallman-the-aftermath>)

Oh, also, for people downvoting me purely because I'm touching their idol,
fuck you. Fanaticism is harmful and I have no sympathy for it. Of all the
people you could've chosen to adore, he's really not the best choice. Some of
his ideas about freedom are interesting, indeed, but the man himself is the
opposite of tolerance, doesn't listen to anyone, and is generally a wreck to
manage (truth be told: when he comes to give conference, he has at least one
person dedicated to "managing" him. I understand celebrities have that
treatment but he's unnecessarily picky about things like temperature, air
flow, etc., etc. You should really see his list of conditions..) When he came
to Geneva in a panel of speakers he kept interrupting everyone, eating pretty
much anything while he spoke and correcting people everytime they said "closed
source" instead of "proprietary"... he's done a lot of good to the software
community but maybe it's just time he retires?

