Index

 Search 

 Reviews

 Interviews

 Articles

 Short films

 Capsule reviews

 News & releases

 Links

 Contact

 About EMVG

Best viewed without Internet Explorer

© Esa Linna unless stated otherwise

Revolution OS. USA 2001. Directed by J.T.S. Moore

When the friend of director J.T.S Moore suggested him to make movie about Linux, Moore new then only that Linux is a operating system. The term "open source" didn't ring a bell at all. Former Disney screenwriter Moore planned to make an entertaining documentary and the result is highly interesting documentary which relies heavy on interviews. Most fascinating is to see and hear some real characters like Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens.

Revolution OS begins with Eric Raymond's funny true story, when scruffy hacker (himself) meets Microsoft's arrogant guy in the suit, Craig Mundie. This shows the way to whole movie, where the leading men of open source movement tell about their philosophies, praise the opportunities of open source - and every now and then criticize Microsoft and other "closed source" companies. Director has used the storytelling in orthodox manner to create a classical setting of good vs. evil. Most transparent and very hilarious example of this is a scene, where female narrator reads Bill Gates' "Open letter to hobbyists" with fury - as we can see Gates' gleefully grotesque smile going round and round. Oh yes, and the background music could be from some horror movie. Gates' pictures had been provided by his own company, Corbis.

Because the director does not work in information technology business, he has made the interviewed persons to answer clearly and Moore's tight questions keep them to stay in topic. Richard Stallman's story about his early MIT years is one of the interesting parts of interviews, along with story of Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the bazaar"-essay, Torvalds' and Larry Augustin's stock exchange celebrations and shots from LinuxWorld Expo. It makes you smile at least, when you see Torvalds playing with his kids on the stage, as Richard Stallman preaches about GNU, Free Software Foundation and open source.

Pleasant-sounding female narrator fits to documentary along with well-chosen soundtrack, to make it entertaining without decreasing its credibility. Revolution OS has been shot on film, so it's not a cheap-looking digital video camera documentary. We are talking about movie, which has the beginning, middle and the end. Microsoft declined to take part in the documentary and you can hear more about the subject in audio commentary. 

Revolution OS is out now on two-disc special edition. First disc has couple of trailers and director Moore's enlightening audio commentary. You can also watch the movie with only soundtrack turned on.

Disc two contains 70 minutes of additional interviews, with for example open source panel, Free Software Song music video by the band GNU/Stallmans, biographies and image gallery. There's also 113 pages of text material including GPL licence, GNU Manifesto, Cathedral and the bazaar essay, definition of open source and more. Region code is free and the DVD's do not contain any CSS-protection.

Revolution OS two-disc special edition is highly recommendable for anyone, who is interested of this subject. Unfortunately latest material is from 2001 - we have seen some soap opera around Linux and open source with all the Microsoft-paid studies and SCO lawsuit ... and that would make a perfect subject for a sequel.