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.
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.
You are free to convert any text to the closed eBook reading format. It'd be great if the eBook just was able to show open formats in a correct way (my Hanlin v3 is capable of that) -- it also can run OpenInkpot, a Linux for eBook readers.
The kindle doesn't have any DRM restrictions. Those are on the books Amazon sells. Files you obtain otherwise and put on the Kindle don't magically get DRM'd.
That's true (I'm actually working on an ebook generation library that does PDF, ePUB, and MOBI), but most books that most people will read on the Kindle do have that DRM. That's what I meant by DRM restrictions on the Kindle.
If it sounded like I was saying that the device itself forces DRM, that's not what I meant.
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.
Trying to turn pages on a PDF being displayed on a Kindle makes me want to punch kittens. Multiple. Because that's how much time I have between. Each. Page.
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.
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".
This is Free as in Freedom 2.0: Richard Stallman and the Free Software Revolution, a revision of Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software.
Copyright 2002, 2010 Sam Williams
Copyright 2010 Richard M. Stallman
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License."
Say what you will about Stallman, but I've never heard anyone accuse him of not living by his principles.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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'.)
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?
