Frequently Asked Questions



1. Why are you doing this?

I do not believe that electronic publishing and paper publishing are as competitive as most people think. 2. What do you mean by "no frills?"

By "no frills," I mean no images [.jpeg or .gif], no proprietary fonts, no browser-specific tags, no Java applets, no Flash, no CGI/Perl/Slash tricks. Nothing to cripple your home modem and nothing to expose my extraordinary lack of coding skills. Just simple, honest-to-goodness home-cooked HTML the way mom used to make it back in 1994.

I do reserve the right to change this policy, of course. For those willing to help out, I will be posting a wish list page, including all the reader-friendly features I would like to integrate into the site.

3. Why no pictures?

During the writing of Free as in Freedom, it was unclear exactly how the GFDL applied to photographic images. The two photos of Stallman which appear in the book, i.e. Stallman at his terminal and Stallman dressed in his "St. Ignucius" outfit, were both borrowed from the www.stallman.org website. Both photos are protected by prior copyright, and though I secured written permission from the photographers who took them, I'm still a bit leery to fold them into the GFDL-protected content of this book.

 Since publication of this book, the Free Software Foundation has relased an updated version of its GNU Free Documentation License which, I am told, deals with the issue of prior-copyrighted photographic images. I have not reviewed this new version, however, and for the time being have decided to keep this site text-only.

I have other reasons for doing this: Reason No. 2 is that I found most photographic images to be a waste of time, space and bandwidth on the Internet. Reason No. 3 is that I prefer to focus on improving the text content of this book, leaving the photo images to future authors, including myself, who might wish to make derivative commercial versions of Free as in Freedom. 4.How can I access a translated version of Free as in Freedom?

At the moment of this writing, no translated versions of Free as in Freedom exist, so the best way to access a translated version of Free as in Freedom is to translate the book yourself and post it online. According to the GFDL, this is perfectly within your rights as a reader. The GFDL also allows you to copy and redistribute "officially" translated versions of the book. I have no knowledge of any translation deals between O'Reilly, the company that currently publishes the hardcover, English-language version of Free as in Freedom, and foreign publishers, but I hear they are in the works.

Note: If you do take it upon yourself to translate this book [about 3 month's work by my naive estimate], please be sure to send me the URL of the translated version when you're done. I will include a link to it on the FAIFzilla.org home page.

5. How do I report a typo or broken link? For now, just send a message explaining the problem and the suggested fix to sam@inow.com, and I will make the fix as soon as possible. In future versions of this site, I will integrate a bug-fix form. If anybody has any suggestions on the best way to do this, please send them my way.

6. What if I want to suggest a rewrite? The best way to suggest a rewrite is to send me an email containing the problem text and the suggested alternate text. Once I receive this, you and I, in typical editor/writer fashion will haggle over the merits of the new text and figure out the best way to incorporate the rewritten text. If the new text is markedly superior, both in terms of writing and factual accuracy, I will insert it as replacement text with a footnote link denoting the author responsible for the inserted passage. If I challenge it with my own commentary, I will include it as sideline dialogue linked to the main text via footnote.

For those who deem this process too centralized, I am currently looking into a more interactive publishing formats. There is already a LaTeX version, and I'm hoping to include a Wiki version in the 1.2 upgrade. 7. What if I want to add a chapter? By all means, go ahead. I reserve the right to vet all additions to the FAIFzilla site, of course. That said, I welcome all contributions, especially those that provide a better understanding of Stallman's software development work. 8. What does Richard Stallman think about the book?

I cannot speak for Richard, but I can say that in our last telephone conversation he expressed displeasure with many sections of the book. He views the characterization of himself in some chapters as overly "prejudicial" and has requested a number of corrections to the final text. He has also requested, indirectly, that readers not present him with copies of the book in the hopes of getting an autograph. This seems like a reasonable request, in my opinion, seeing as how he neither wrote the book nor had a say in its editorial direction. If you would like Richard's autograph, it is best to approach him with a print out copy of his own written work, e.g. the "GNU Manifesto" or the "GNU General Public License."

9.Will Stallman have an editorial say as to how FAIFzilla evolves?

Yes and no. Richard has already reviewed the site and has sent me several lengthy sections of corrected text, which I am currently integrating into the main text. My guess, however, is that Richard will continue to distance himself from the work. Free as in Freedom is an unauthorized biography and FAIFzilla.org remains as such.

That said, I would like to see FAIFzilla to become the most trusted historical resource until Stallman himself takes time to write his autobiography. Hopefully, with enough effort and diligence, we can make that autobiography easier to write.

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