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It comes down to the context: yes, when poor John loses his dog, we can all understand, what you meant. However, Stallman did not lose anything, furthermore, he is successful and happy with his choices, therefore your "poor Stallman" comment is by definition condescension.

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Nothing but respect here for RMS. Successful: yes. Happy with his choices: debatable. His writing and his countenance don't really give off the "happy" vibe.

Perhaps the condescension in my writing (of which there was none) was not so much in the signal as it was in the receiver? Your reply is absolutely dripping with it, window-dressing a cry of "is not / is so" with: "however", "furthermore", "therefore", and "by definition."

The only thing that would have made it worse would be putting it into pseudocode!

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