为什么微软公司的管理层晚上睡觉的时候会担心一个长发的、名叫Richard Stallman的反叛高手？为什么世界最聪明的程序员都尊敬地将此人称为“St.Ignucius”?这样一个倔强的、少年老成的男孩是如何迷恋于开发出能打败软件巨人的优秀产品的？本书就将跟随着这位古怪天才的革命之路，看看他如何从一个孤僻的开才到流浪十年，最终成为受人尊敬又饱受非议的改革者。通过全方位地接触Stallman、他的家庭、追随他的程序高手和业界勾勒了了一位改变了世界的自由斗士的肖像。没有人会对这位备受争议的自由软件基金会的创始人无动于衷。作为优秀的程序员，MacArthur天才奖获得者，自称自闭症边缘人士，Stallman是这场通过彻底改变软件游戏规则来击败微软件的斗争中的开路先锋。对于Stallman来说，自由软件只是一种精神上的需要。自从1980年遇到非免费的打印机软件开始，他就将自己的一生投入到消灭私有代码的斗争中去。在救世主意愿的驱使下，再加上他世界级的编程水准，以及不可思议的号召力，Stallman的自由运动获得了每一位程序员的支持。1983年，Stallman发布了GNU Maniffesto，发起了一个大胆的项目，目的是开发出一种免费的用于替代Unix操作系统的产品。而且他在他自己的软件许可（即GPL，General Public License）中插入copyleft一词，从而他向传统的知识产权系统发起了挑战。微软公司的首席技术官员Craig Mundie称此举是“对独立商用软件构成的根本性破坏。”这本煽动性的编年史以一种新的视角让其崇拜者和反对者重新认识这位神秘的高科技罗宾汉，让读者重新理解他当初要重塑软件产业未来的诺言。资深自由作者Sam Williams花了很多年的时间来研究高技术产业的未来，特别关注了软件开发问题。他为Upside Today和BeOpen.com等出版物撰写固定的专栏。他还是Arguing A.I.:The Battle for Twenty-First Century Science一书的作者。

This text interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. Starting with how it all began - a desire for software code from Xerox to make the printing more efficient - to the continuing quest for free software that still exists today. The goal of the book is to document how Stallman's own personal evolution has done much to shape notions of what free software is and should be. Like Alan Greenspan in the financial sector, Stallman has assumed the role of tribal elder in a community that bills itself as anarchic and immune to central authority. This book looks at how the latest twists and turns in the software marketplace have done little to throw Stallman off his pedestal. Discover how Richard's childhood and teenage experiences as well as his years at Harvard and MIT made him the man he is today. The book's narrative style includes many quotes from Richard and his mother about his life, education, and work providing a look at RMS and Free Software Foundation (FSF). Throughout the book are insights from FSF supporters, detractors, the early MIT hackers, and those who knew him in high school and college. If anything, the current software marketplace has made Stallman's logic-based rhetoric and immovable personality more persuasive. In a rapidly changing world people need a fixed reference point, and Stallman has become that reference point for many in the software world.

In 2002, Sam Williams wrote Free as in Freedom, a biography of Richard M. Stallman. In its epilogue, Williams expressed hope that choosing to distribute his book under the GNU Free Documentation License would enable and encourage others to share corrections and their own perspectives through modifications to his work. Free as in Freedom (2.0) is Stallman's revision of the original biography. While preserving Williams's viewpoint, it includes factual corrections and extensive new commentary by Stallman, as well as new prefaces by both authors written for the occasion. It is a rare kind of biography, where the reader has the benefit of both the biographer's original words and the subject's response