FSF announces publication of two new books by Richard Stallman
fsf.org
fsf.org
If it sounded like I was saying that the device itself forces DRM, that's not what I meant.
The Kindle's screen being physically smaller than that, your display options are limited to scaling an image of the 8.5x11 page down to fit into 4.8x3.6 screen, at which point fonts are generally too small to read, or attempting to reflow the PDF's contents on-the-fly, which is noticeably slow and typically only gives acceptable results if the PDF contained an absolute minimum of formatting.
I suspect that RMS's message would be rejected however he dressed: it is antithetical to many/most forms of business as we know it in the US.
Actually, from what I've read of RMS, I'm not even sure how he envisions successful business to operate.
I see many successful businesses, for example IBM, making money hand over fist using Linux. Linux of course is "free software".
I saw many talks in past years and I'll always remember the ones from rms but more for his message than his personal appearance.
One might argue with Stallman's ideas, but he walks the talk and he sticks to his guns.
It looks like Free as in Freedom 2.0 is under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3, and Free Software, Free Society allows verbatim copying by anyone, and translation by those who have been approved by the FSF (i.e. it is not a free documentation license)
Not sure how you get at the actual manuscripts, you may need to contact FSF for that.
EDIT: Here are the links to the PDFs
http://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs-ii-2.pdf http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/faif-2.0.pdf
Thank you for sharing what you found.
I can't, in good conscience, read a book that only allows modification and redistribution by those in a privileged class.
Our basic liberties are under assault here!
In the former case, Stallman believes that it's useful to modify works: You might want to update a technical manual for a new version of the software, or you might want to fix articles in the encyclopedia.
But in the latter case, you're generally not inconvenienced by the fact that you can't edit someone's written opinions. So in these cases, Stallman tends to favor licenses which allow copying, but not modification.
Copyright 2002, 2010 Sam Williams
Copyright 2010 Richard M. Stallman
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License."
Say what you will about Stallman, but I've never heard anyone accuse him of not living by his principles.
edit: Oh come one downvoters. Stallman has done great things, and his scriptures are as interesting as the next guy. But he should stop trying to give conferences in French (and probably conferences as a whole). See the open letter someone wrote him recently - it was spot-on.
Further, if you genuinely wondered as to whether he is a better prosodist than speaker, Stallman is a prolific author with many essays and articles available online which you could read & judge.
(My own take, having read the originals of both books covered by the OP, is that Stallman is a perfectly readable writer. He will never win awards for his style, but he does not grate on the ear.)
I don't think my comment qualifies as malicious. It might be an uncomfortable truth, that he's really not that fit for public speech and that his time is better spent writing programs and literature.
(Also, what does http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prosody has to do with writing free software ideology? Last time I checked, he wrote in prose.)
(As for 'prosody', yes, my bad. I was misled by 'poesy' and 'prose'.)
My original comment would've been funny to anyone having seen him give a speech in French. But it wasn't really helpful indeed. The open letter from Alexey, though was helpful http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-stallman-the-aftermath - but it's not like Richie is going to listen anyway (his response was a pirouette, and not subtle at that: http://alexeymk.com/dear-dr-stallman-the-aftermath)
Oh, also, for people downvoting me purely because I'm touching their idol, fuck you. Fanaticism is harmful and I have no sympathy for it. Of all the people you could've chosen to adore, he's really not the best choice. Some of his ideas about freedom are interesting, indeed, but the man himself is the opposite of tolerance, doesn't listen to anyone, and is generally a wreck to manage (truth be told: when he comes to give conference, he has at least one person dedicated to "managing" him. I understand celebrities have that treatment but he's unnecessarily picky about things like temperature, air flow, etc., etc. You should really see his list of conditions..) When he came to Geneva in a panel of speakers he kept interrupting everyone, eating pretty much anything while he spoke and correcting people everytime they said "closed source" instead of "proprietary"... he's done a lot of good to the software community but maybe it's just time he retires?