October 14th, 2024 Richard Stallman (aka “RMS”) is the founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation and present-day voting member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) board of directors and “Chief GNUisance” of the GNU project. He is responsible for innumerable contributions to the free software movement, setting its guiding principles, organizing political action, and directly contributing to a flourishing free software ecosystem. The majority of Stallman’s political activity has been of priceless value to society at large.
This is not the first time I find people attacking Stallman without much evidence or by taking his words out of context. But his views as expressed by himself on his site are also pretty extreme, and I don’t find those good.
It would be better to discern allegations and facts, still.
I’ve always found Stallman’s views to be impeccably rational. To me, the extremity is instead in the irrationality of those who find Stallman’s views extreme. In general, people aren’t rational and find it difficult to cope when they come across a person who is. I think this is why so many people find Stallman’s notes distasteful.
Irrationality is also why I find this report to be so ugly: it’s full of non sequiturs. It’s a product of irrational, seemingly damaged minds.