In addition to the famous "Hackers" by Steven Levy, this book provides an excellent introduction to free movement and their origins. The semantic debate around the term "hackers" untreated too long (as often elsewhere), and the book is clearly aimed at a public aware of the problems caused by the media around this term. The development around fetchmail, and presentation of Linux history pose two good foundation on which to base the rest of the development. The book covers a wide period of time, and attempts to regulate both the origins of the movement, predictions about his future.
I think this is one of those reference books that academic institutions like to ignore in computer courses, making students not only miss a huge part of the culture and history of their area, but also all this vision, IT development, not as an area most purely "professional", but as something that has and continues to arouse passion and pure scientific curiosity for anyone interested correctly.
