"However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this. Of course, I explain why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because that would be counterproductive.
"Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.)
"That reasoning is based on the fact that I was not responsible for setting up those machines, or for how that was done. By contrast, if I were to ask or lead someone to set up a computer for me to use, that would make me ethically responsible for its software load. In such a case I insist on free software, just as if the machine were mine.
"Skype is another kind of exception. Using Skype to talk with someone else who is using Skype is encouraging the other to use nonfree software. So I won't use it under any circumstances."
Skype is an exception but the PSTN is not? This is intellectual BS to the highest degree for RMS to maintain his hoity toity attitude instead of just admitting that it's too inconvenient for even RMS to live the life that RMS preaches. RMS uses A LOT of non-free software by choice when he could choose not too.
Whatever RMS does is pro-freedom, but when I run OS X I'm supporting fascism.
It's a bunch of holier than thou (for christ sakes the guy thinks he's St. Ignutious) assholes making up rules so they can pretend they're better than the rest of us. When you point out how they don't really give a shit about the principles which they shove down your throat they then make exceptions miles wide to avoid looking like the pretentious assholes they are.
Yet every time my POS license restricted windows PC crashes I feel good. Because Bill Gates is giving billions to charity and working on wiping diseases off entire continents.
You, as an individual, can choose to run and use Skype or an alternative communication system. You, as an individual, do not have the chance to force your telco to change to another communication system.
You cannot force your waiter to eat meat neither not to eat meat, but that does not prevent you from being a strict vegan and yet being served by that waiter.
No I can't force my waiter to not eat meat, but when someone says they are vegan and then orders a meal that involves fossil fuel or animal fertilizer to grow and transport those vegetables they look like pretentious assholes to anyone who knows how the world works. When vegans start avoiding pavement and stop living in ancient animal habitats I'll start listening to their arguments about animal welfare.
Same with RMS, when he stops using non-free software I'll start caring what he thinks about free software. Until then he comes off like an ass. Just like the mormons who knock on my door talking about a message of love and then spread a message of hate to any man who wants to marry a man.
"I'm a Christian, unless you're gay" "I'm a free software advocate, unless I want to travel by air, or withdraw money from a bank" "I'm a vegan, unless the killing of the animal is one step removed"
It's all the same pretention and I don't want any part of it. For the most part I don't even care if people hold those mutually exclusive points of view, I just don't want to hear about it. I know lots of FSF advocates, vegans and Christians who simply shut up about it, I'm hoping that RMS simply becomes one of those people.
Regarding your wondering about air travel and crosswalks, I would say that RMS addresses this concern relatively directly in the featured article.
"Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. .... That reasoning is based on the fact that I was not responsible for setting up those machines, or for how that was done."
It seems to me that it is generally only fully appropriate to post a top-level comment in the thread of an article if you have read that article.
"I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me."
If that is not good enough and one gives up the second there is a challenge or compromise involved, then there is no humanity left, and generally no point to life. Evolution and education would be dead.