A feature-length documentary by
JTS Moore, premiered at the
South by Southwest 2001 film festival in
Austin, TX on
March 12th,
2001.
Revolution OS chronicles the birth of the
open source and
free software movements and ultimately the rise of
Linux.
The film opens with a quote from
Eric S. Raymond, about a run-in he had with the VP of consumer productsof Microsoft at
Agenda 2000 wherein the VP asked Eric, "What do you do?". Eric gives him the
thousand yard stare and replies, "
I'm your worst nightmare."
It is in this tone of subversion that the documentary follows the history of this underground movement. A brief introduction answers the question for the non-technically oriented in the audience, "What is Linux, exactly?" From there, the film follows the timeline of Linux and open source from the inception of
GNU by
Richard Stallman to Linus' keynote at the first
Linux Expo. No details were spared, as the film includes the description of the meaning behind the
recursive acronym that is
GNU, a synopsis of
The Cathedral and The Bazaar given by
Bruce Perens, the rise of
VA Linux, and even the origins and the correct pronunciation of the word "
Linux" as given by Mr.
Torvalds himself.
I was fortunate enough to see this during its world premiere, surrounded by notable figures in the open source movement. Most of the audience had already heard this tale: we were the ones who lived it. I remembered where I was when I found out about some of the key events of the last few years. I could only smile when, during the course of the film visually marking the years that events took place with both a date and a Linux
kernel version, I saw the version number of the first kernel I ever used displayed prominently on the
silver screen.
I had a feeling, however, that this film connected with the non-technically inclined audience members in that it clearly portrayed the fervor with which the people who make this movement possible spend hour after hour sitting indoors, hunched over a keyboard doing work for no compensation other than the satisfaction that somebody else out there is appreciative of their efforts.
This film is for those of you who have enjoyed
Pirates of Silicon Valley or
Triumph of the Nerds.
A footnote: The film is scheduled to show again this Wednesday, March 14th, at the
Alamo Drafthouse at 4:45pm and on Thursday, March 15th at the Austin Convention Center at 7:30pm.