Antitrust (film)

Antitrust is a 2001 film directed by Peter Howitt and written by Howard Franklin. The cast included Ryan Phillippe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Claire Forlani, Tim Robbins, Douglas McFerran, Richard Roundtree, Tygh Runyan, and Yee Jee Tso.

The film is a thriller portraying young idealistic programmers working at startup companies and a big closed source company (NURV) which offers money, a playful working environment and creative opportunites to talented programmers if they are willing to work for them. The charismatic CEO of NURV seems at first to be good natured, but eventually the hero of the story starts to unravel the terrible hidden truth of NURV's operation.

Trivia

• Tim Robbins' CEO character appears to be based on Microsoft founder Bill Gates, while at the same time exhibiting some of the trademark characteristics of Apple founder Steve Jobs.
• Sun CEO Scott McNealy makes a cameo appearance.
• Miguel de Icaza makes a cameo appearence. Behind the scenes, Miguel assisted in designing the computer screenshots (in GNOME) used in the movie.

The movie is made to act as a warning, people coding software innovations can become in danger in certain situations. For example the maker of Jan Sloot Digital Encoding System died one day before he would sign the contract with a big company. The movie is a warning from history.

External links

• Antitrust at IMDb
• Antitrust and the Straw Man - A Discussion of The Film and Open Source