[Fsf-friends] very important book

[Kush]

I recently had a chance to read the book
Rebel code by Glyn Moody published in 2001 and somewhat dated. The book 
must be made required reading for children in school (atleast from the 
8th/9th class onwards)if India is ever to become a software superpower 
because of the following reasons--

It gives a complete overview of the history of the open source movement 
and one gets a good understanding from such history.
It shows the values of the hacker movement--meritocracy, peer 
acknowledgement, pride in one's work etc etc plus also  how work becomes 
worship/happiness and money comes naturally as a side effect. How 
sharing and giving reduce costs and ultimately increase the buying power 
of the whole world.

What are the pitfalls that are to be watched for in leadership, getting 
group consensus, keeping the community whole and so on.  How things 
could be easily subverted? and so on. How the commercialisation 
helped/did not help the movement?

etc etc

In short this book is a real motivator as it gives insights and shows 
things from various perspectives. Its not talked about later 
technologies such as php, mysql, open source CRM/ERP business solutions 
etc etc but it is certainly better than reading all those confusing 
computer magazines which do not tell about trends and tend to give 
information overload to people like me.

I wish we had access to such books in 2001 itself. It would have helped 
a lot. In the end open source (volunteer driven part) has succeeded in 
some ways though core development now is being done by people paid by 
the establishment. But these top people have been given the freedom to 
innovate and do what they like once they have proved themselves.

Also this movement was a backlash against vendor lock in, not listening 
to the customer,  fleecing the customer etc etc because of the  unequal 
balance of power etc between  vendor and customer. Most of the factors 
which led to the free software  movement have since reduced/vanished  
but eternal vigil is needed . Microsoft and others can bring  back the 
clock  anytime --  I think there is a parallel  between the Kerberos  
episode and open document standards being adopted/twisted by  Microsoft 
(decommodifying or non transparency in standards is mentioned). Its not 
only Microsoft which is bad but also Oracle, HP, Canon, IBM etc--they do 
what suits them most and leads to vendor lock in.

Kush