You know, there is a reason why "nitpicking" at wording is important: it frames the debate in favour of the one who impose one's wording. http://lesswrong.com/lw/ng/words_as_hidden_inferences/

That said, "Open Source" became polluted too. I have seen comments here say "Open Source vs commercial software". Oops. Anyway, in my language, we don't have this issue: we have two very distinct words to distinguish freedom from gratis, so the issue didn't come up in the first place (at least when we avoid English).

It's both a problem and not. :-) The problem is that people tend to eat sound bytes and marketable ideas without careful regard for the nuances; long-winded technical discussion tends to invoke the "where's the tl;dr" response.

But careful examination of the semantics actually reveals (1) errors, (2) biases, and (3) contradictions. Which - as a blunt stereotype - is where hackers will excel, the technical & careful examination.

Engaging the idea directly: rms is a zealot. His goal is libre software as a grand moral good. He is a ideologue from the 1970s, with all that should connote. This will not make the modern ironic zeitgeist comfortable. I don't know why anyone should expect otherwise.

While I agree with you and point #3 of the article. Semantic arguments typically interfere with discussing the fundamental issue, but since the article spent much of it's time speaking to the goals and expectations of the FOSS community, I think the distinction between FOSS and open-source is an important one, as the goals of the FOSS communtity are unique within the broad scope of open-source software.

One does not avoid being called out for being wrong about a thing simply by saying "calling me out for being wrong is one of the problems I'm discussing."