There being so little material in our language, The book Piensa Abierto by Matías Gutiérrez Reto is an essential contribution to understanding the history of free software. Far from the life of saints that the publishing industry proposes when it addresses the lives of the people behind the technology, the author makes a balanced summary between context and worldview of the creators of hardware and software and how they all influence each other.
There is no better way to appreciate a person's work than to have tried it yourself. During the pandemic I wrote a series of articles on Linux Addicts about the prehistory of Linux, That is why I can value Matias' enormous effort to elaborate in a clear, comprehensive and concise way the most important facts behind the history of the GNU and Linux project.Needless to say, his work is much better than mine.
To understand the history of free software
I started reading book on my smartphone, standing on a sidewalk in Greater Buenos Aires on a cold August morning. Perhaps the best compliment I can give to Piensa Abierto is that the 40 minutes it took for the person I was supposed to meet to arrive flew by. I'm not sure if this is a book for a layman, but for a Linux user with average knowledge it is clearly understandable.
Although the book can also be obtained in physical format, I recommend reading it in digital format. Each chapter includes links that provide more information about the chapter or allow you to try out some historical programs.
As it was in the beginning
Any history of free software is incomplete without mentioning Bell Labs and its parent company, the AT&T telephone monopoly, but there is also the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Berkeley and of course the now somewhat declining IBM. As if it were a soap opera, Piensa Abierto shows us the struggle between those who wanted to share knowledge and code and those who wanted to restrict it in order to be able to charge for their work. It is fascinating that the monopolistic AT&T produced the first free operating system in history and then shut it down once the government forced it to deregulate.
The great contribution of the text (Or of the texts since they are organized in articles that can be read independently) It allows us to draw conclusions and ask questions.
One of my conclusions is that, despite what some detractors (and supporters) may think, free software is a typical product of capitalism. (This is my own statement, not the work's) As Gutiérrez Reto points out, Stallman's writings cite John Stuart Mills and Adam Smith. In his opinion, Stallman's impulse was ethical and not political. The FSF was initially funded by distributing free tools that replaced proprietary tools that were either unavailable or were available at a high price.
Piensa Abierto follows, through the FSF newsletters, the failed attempt to create a proprietary operating system to replace Unix and how this was delayed by the failure to keep promises of a contributor and the proprietary components and lack of portability of third-party alternatives. And, in support of my statement about capitalism, the Linux kernel appeared.
History repeats itself
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the comparison he makes between the emergence of Unix and the emergence of Linux. Although one was born in a corporate structure and the other in a college dorm room, both were the work of the same kind of people, people who were unhappy with something and wanted to change it. When they did, they shared their work with the world to use and improve.
The poet says that if we do not remember what happens to us, the same things can happen to us. In the 80s, the development of Unix was in danger because companies stopped allowing its free distribution. Today, Linux and free software face the challenge that their development is increasingly in the hands of companies and licenses that were previously free are changed for economic or ideological reasons. That is why I repeat the principle: Think Open should not be missing from the library or storage medium of every free software lover.