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> They generally seem to believe that world has room for somebody like Stallman, who's horrible at PR but who takes principled stands.

We need more people like that not less unfortunately they often get creamed by the people who are unwilling to take a stand but pretty good at PR.

In the realm of politics you can see that happening now in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn (principled even if you disagree with his politics) and the way the press treats him.

Totally agree, he is a man or principles with genuine concern for others, when he speaks, others listen.

More of his caliber.

I consider Elon Musk of a similar caliber but it's interesting to see how different both of them are portrayed: Stallman is weird, frustrating, and an Aspie, and Musk is eccentric, ambitious and a legend. (All real quotes from HN). The difference of course is that one is the father of the free software movement and the other is a billionaire.

Oh man I totally disagree with this.

Elon Musk has almost "manifest destiny" ideas about the inherent goodness of America. He talks about the virtues of unfettered capitalism while his lobbyists keep India from playing in American satellite markets. He donated to Marco Rubio as well as to democrat candidates.

I don't think Musk is particularly principled. We're just lucky that he thinks rockets and alternative energy are cool.

Just because he subscribes to a different ideology doesn't mean he isn't also very principled. I mean, his "manifest destiny" ideas (as you put it) led him to give his competitors open access to Tesla's patents.

The parent poster gave an example of hypocritical behavior:

> He talks about the virtues of unfettered capitalism while his lobbyists keep India from playing in American satellite markets.

Their principles are just different, man.

Totally agree. His personal/family life is a shambles which is a real litmus test of character and integrity.

He has achieved great financial, business, and technology successes and is a visionary, but let's not confuse that with being a role model or hero to be emulated.

Stallman on the other hand gets nothing but respect from me for his personal integrity and values.

Musk has a great backing by a few enlightened persons that try to bring ideas that were floating 40-60 years ago to reality as due to technological advances some of them are now possible or viable and no longer need to reside in sci-fi world only.

One gave world a compiler and a text editor.

Another sells self driving electric cars and may even stop global warming.

Something that has always rankled me with respect to this view of Stallman as a high-caliber role model is the name calling the original commenter mentioned. Of all the people I look up to and aspire to be more like, not a single one employs that particular childish style of "discourse".

I think it'd be a mix of a couple things, it keeps things lighthearted for him, and it allows him to not have to keep typing out the name of something he dislikes very much.

He ain't writing strict legal discourse, he's writing out his own feelings in the way he feels most enjoyable. Personally I respect that.

For myself: I don't like using words like f*, and I prefer to censor them if I do use them, and I'd rather call someone a goob, instead of an idiot or a moron. My intent isn't to be mean!

You don't think you're being a little over-sensitive with respect to the name calling ?

Uber to Guber isn't that bad?

I'd say it's better that it isn't a person, but a shared set of values. Harder for the PR lot to spin and counter.

In a rational world I'd agree but my old boss used to say (he was sales) "People buy People", I think the best case is a shared set of values represented by someone who can articulate them well and with integrity.

Which pretty much sounds like Bernie Sanders/Jeremy Corbyn, alas it doesn't seem to be enough these days.

The press treats him appropriately. He's a fringe left leader and is derided as such in a wider population. I applaud his commitment to ideology though.

Jeremy Corbyn calls Hezbollah and Hamas his friends and his associates are vocally anti-semitic.

Yeah, but you know, everyone needs an editor. Anyone who writes stuff should run it by another set of eyes.

Every single piece Stallman writes would be stronger if someone would say "take out the Goober bit" or "take out the Swindle" bit or whatever other goofy names he comes up with.

This 4th grade stuff just weakens his essays. It isn't good, it doesn't need to be there. All it tells me is that he's not running his stuff by anyone who'll challenge him to make his writing stronger.

> I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.

One of my favorite RMS quotes. We need people like him to fill out the spectrum.

> I suspect he could have made a very profitable business off of GCC in the 80s—it was a remarkably good compiler for several chips back in the day—but he preferred to focus on writing more free software.

The irony is that if he had made a business out of it, he could have had much more influence.

No need to speculate: Cygnus did make a business out of it.

Doesn't he simply have Asperger's?

I wouldn't say 'simply'. That's accepting labelling as analysis

Labeling is simply creating a reference to a body of analysis that has already been done. (A particular proposed label may or may not be accurate in a given case, but that's an entirely different issue.)