Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Mikael If this really is a serious attempt for making a documentary it tries to cover so many areas that it should have been made a series instead. It fails to give a proper history of open source/free software. It fails to recreate the role of open source/free software during the period of focus, namely the dot com boom and crash of 1997-2001. It fails to give any new insights, even for the year it was made. And it fails miserably to have any kind of objectivity or dialogue.The value of this movie are the interviews with the key persons of the various open source and free software movements, though it becomes quite tiresome to sit and wait for the goodies. What really brings the credibility down is the overly hostile reading of the letter by Bill Gates and the traditional Microsoft bashing through the entire production, combined with the heroic soundtrack during the interviews of the "good guys". It gives the over all impression of really being a sales pitch for a church from a bunch of overly enthusiastic believers, though without the visionary parts that can make it a document of its context of production.In conclusion, even though far between, there are some good bits in this documentary that could make it worth watching if you have a special interest in the open source movement. Just be aware that you might also get some chills of embarrassment in between.

mmoneta While this documentary only covers the early period of Linux and Open Source history (up to about 2000), it provides great insights into how the software industry got itself where it is today.Of course, since 2000, Linux has made great strides into the server market, the desktop market (even Walmart sells computers with Linux now), and the embedded market. Cell phones, Palm PDAs, cameras, camcorders, cars, networking, Tivo, cable boxes, etc. all run by Linux now (or soon will, according to announcements from manufacturers).The days when you needed to learn a dozen different operating systems are gone. Learn Linux and you know how everything works. The best part is that if you don't like the way something works, you can change it. That, and it's free! Make copies for all your friends, legally. Tens of thousands of high-quality free software products (office suites, graphics packages, video processing, everything imaginable). Tech support is provided by tens of thousands of volunteers.It's hard to understand how this change from paying for software to free software happened; for many people not involved in the process, it's still news to them.If you want to know how this all happened, Revolution OS will give you the background you need to understand the way the software business works now, and in the future.

Ralph Michael Stein My fourteen-year-old boy is very much into computers (that's hardly surprising). This summer he'll be back with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth program studying - I don't really know exactly what. It's some kind of computer program, I just sign the check.He's very much both anti-Microsoft and anti-Bill Gates. He's also quite pro-Linux, the emblem of the "Open Source" movement whose adherents regard its underlying virtues with a devotion normally reserved by the religious for the icons of their faiths.So he wanted me to see "Revolution OS," a documentary about the Linux operating system and the open source movement that spawned the increasingly important competitor to both Microsoft and Apple.This is a very interesting documentary which I, clueless as to the secrets of operating systems, readily understood. I watched it with the barest comprehension of Linux or the philosophy underlying the open source concept.Much credit to the filmmaker for not only explaining the seminal value of open source - the commitment to free interchange of ideas with minimal incorporation of legal protection for intellectual property - but for also succinctly allowing contrasting values and competing personalities screen time. This documentary is a very concise but excellent guide for the uninitiated into a world usually the arcane preserve of specialists most adept at talking to each other.The Open Source movement is a work in progress threatened by the real risk of those benefiting from openness legally protecting their own "added value" and thus, in a sense, betraying their benefactors. Several of those interviewed pursue their open source values almost as a creed, the commitment to computers taking the place of more traditional dogma.Anyone interested in a major intellectual counterpoint to the dominance of both Microsoft and the role of law in insuring proprietary benefits for innovators should see "Revolution OS": no manual required.8/10.

DavidHuebel "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.