In the Winter of 1917 Tsar Nicholas III was in power along with his Tsarina of German extraction, in a standard-issue European model monarchy.  Hardship for people outside the inner circle of the elite was real, grinding and constant.  Queues for food waited for hours in icy streets.  Only the relatively well-to-do could afford even wood to heat their houses.  There was no real concern from the monarchy for the state of the life of their subjects, other than to keep the order so they could go on with their luxurious lives without the irritation of difficulties amongst the serfs.  There was a clear and well-defined military and police structure to oppress the citizens.  Over in France in the late 1700's, we see a similar situation.  In a bad year 90% of the peasants are below the starvation level, partly due to an extreme population bulge.  Again at the top of the heap was a Monarchy, King Louis XVI being the unlucky guy without a chair when the music stopped.  There are rigid structures and laws in place to punish anything other than obedience to the will of the regime.

Nowadays we have gone beyond all this nonsense, of course.  Nowadays we have King William Gates III lording it over his transnational subjects (~95% of the computers in the world running his OSes).  We have severe and punitive laws in place to punish anyone who copies content that is the property of the King.  The King also has extraordinary restrictive EULAs and 'activation' software that require you to petition the King, to beg him, before you are allowed to change your hardware.  The king levies his tax for the OSes (regardless if the PC is converted later to another OS) and the Office software, and by being the Lingua Franca that Office software and its fonts are a cost of doing almost any business that exchanges documents.  The King does not care about his citizens suffering from the pestilence of viruses and malware, and enjoys his palaces.

Like in the French revolution, the citizens of Russia were on a slow burn of anger that went on for years before reaching a climax, and in both cases the climax was preceded by intellectual developments, and a fairly lengthy period of digestion and evangalizing of that, which changed the worldview of the people on the lowest rung of the ladder and convinced them they were not going to take any more of this crap.  During the "digestion period", arguably the people holding power were capable to turn the situation around by listening to the complaints and making incremental steps towards what was being demanded, actions that would take the wind from the sails of the revolutionists.  But in both the Russian and French cases, the regime instead tightened its grip on the peasantry, punishing those it saw as working against them harshly and polarizing the situation much worse than it had to be by unfair, capricious and extreme uses of power against the citizens.  By increasing the visibility and manifest unfairness their actions in trying to suppress objections and revolt, they made it much more difficult for support for their position to exist amongst the citizens.  (LESSON: If a bloc forms in opposition to what you are doing, and people are listening to what it has to say, also listen to what they are saying and see if you can deliver it before they deliver it for you.)

Today FOSS is the intellectual special sauce that King William cannot abide.  Very slowly, just like before, the idea that you do not have to pay the tax for software is leaking out into the minds of the citizens.  The idea that viruses and diallers are not normal.  The idea that you can be more than a customer, that you can be included in on defining the way forward to the extent of your capabilities and energies is being preached, but most people are not yet ready for it.  King William's reaction is the BSA, with its shakedowns, audits and settlements according to the laws that King William paid well to have on the books.

In both cases, one one side there are vocal proponents of the status quo and the existing regimes, because they profit from the way things are and sucking up, and attacking the people who want to oust them, makes complete sense.  On the other side are earnest belivers in the new way, pounding their bibles and sermonizing from their pulpits.  Latter-day Trolls, the Agitators / Agents Provocateur, work in whispers in private and in shrieking denunciations to crowds to whip up the passions, for their own exhiliration in the exercise of power over others and to advance their cause if they had one.

Today we have Lyons, Enderle, Didio and the other apologists.  We also have people like RMS with their different intellectual vision firing up the believers.  And of course we have trolls.

For the French, an increase in commercial activity amongst the main citizenry drove an increase in asperations which were doomed to be disappointed by the rigid social hereditary heirarchy.  Even in work various guilds had the force of law to include or exclude practitioners, nothing was a meritocracy.  Playing against this was the intellectual force of the Enlightenment, which promoted the concepts of reason and logic as opposed to Divine right (as of Kings) and mysticism throughout the 1700s.  (This itself was a reaction to the Witch burnings and general religion-driven madness of the previous century).  This gave a worldview which natutally led the oppressed citizens to start to question under what right a certain group of people should lord it over the general citizenry, oppress them, reserve for themselves the status and privileges demanded by the increasingly affluent middle classes, and strictly control their ability to openly discuss matters through censorship.  (LESSON: If pressure is building underneath you, it is time to be more inclusive, not time for a purge.  LESSON: New intellectual concepts can change worldviews, and people with changed worldviews can and will change the world.)

In Russia, the senseless war with the Germans, eating the young of both countries alive, gave an urgency and universal appeal to overthrowing the regime in power.