Yet here we are. I now respect him immensely
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
In a real debate about these topics, people usually hide behind capitalist ideals to explain the immoral use of software. As opposed to trying to argue that immoral use doesn't exist, or isn't prevelent.
> Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software
> When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
> Who does that server really serve?
> On the Internet, proprietary software isn't the only way to lose your freedom. Service as a Software Substitute, or SaaSS, is another way to give someone else power over your computing.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
I'd be very cautious in assuming it was correct.
Stallman has tested his thesis about how to communicate his ideals over many decades and has achieved more then we can really fathom or appreciate.
Why don't you test your thesis in talking to others and seeing how it works?
Not using social media is considered a badge of honor by many. Not using the web (although that's not entirely true in RMS' case, he just heavily limits it [1]) should be considered a commendable feat, too. Since it's RMS, though, it's just another opportunity to disparage him.
He thinks that non-copyleft licensed projects can't work when there are tons of counterexamples.
Where has he said they "can't" work? The FSF lists scenarios where they endorse non-copyleft here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html
RMS himself has encouraged use of non-copyleft in the cases of e.g. Qt and Ogg Vorbis, either as transitional licenses or as means to free up the software when the alternative would have been remaining proprietary. He says as much here: https://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3
Sure, but why? Because it's difficult? Because it's useless newfangled morally-corrupting stuff?
Not using the web ... should be considered a commendable feat, too.
Again, why? The web is useful. Is it also commendable to cook all your own food from scratch, do all your laundry by hand, avoid use of electricity, etc?
Facebook's seemingly innocuous site has turned out to be an incredibly intricate mmorpg where your character is some uncannily "realistic" version of "you," and whose map slowly begins to dominate your territory. It is an extremely addicting game for some of us.
Because it's a socially dividing privacy issue to want to involve yourself with social media; even if you choose to use it passively.
Is it also commendable to cook all your own food from scratch, do all your laundry by hand, avoid use of electricity, etc?
Yes, it is, but i'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to discover as to why such things may be commendable.
I run a script blocker and ad blocker for exactly the same reason. Do a quick google search for "malvertising" and you'll discover he's got a point.
Stallman is extreme in all things. He doesn't use mobile phones or credit cards either, IIRC. I can't afford to be as extreme as him, I use a pre-paid visa card for online purchases and temporarily whitelist scripts on the web as I need them.
However, companies like Google, Microsoft, Comcast and Paypal would have you believe that an existence without the products they are pushing is completely impossible, and I think it's both an important and worthwhile thing to be the man standing at the other end of the spectrum proving that they are full of shit. That's what Stallman is doing.
He is extremely security conscious. He doesn't like "active" content and so uses a script to download the web pages he wants to read for later browsing from an off-network computer. This has nothing to do with the license status of the JavaScript. Do you run IE? Or do you run Firefox or Chrome with ad blocking?
He prefers not to trade personal information to pay for access to communications platforms that have little additional utility to e-mail from his perspective. I'd disagree that this is detached from reality. He just doesn't hang out in the same bar as you.
Regarding the GCC, he's made a calculated trade-off of modularity and simplicity for the sake of the GPL's "walled city" of free software. Complecting for effect, if you will.
As for his opinion of non-copyleft software, I think you'd need to qualify your "can't work" phrase. I say this because I think he's absolutely right if we qualify the phrase as "can't work to protect consumer's long-term freedom." I would disagree with your characterization if you are claiming RMS thinks that only copy-left licensed software can be successful. I'm fairly sure RMS sees both Windows and Mac OS X as harmful successes.