He belongs to Wall of Shame.
If he was only representing himself, as if he was just a writer or a programmer, you'd be right.
Yet when it comes to Stallman, his detractors seem to focus on ridiculing his person rather than argue against what he is saying.
If I find anything disgusting, it's such cowardly behaviour.
Obviously these have an impact on his ability to be a spokesperson because they are a constant distraction.
Why is it so insane to suggest he's moved to an "emeritus" position so someone new can push the organization forward?
It's ironic that an organization dedicated to change is reluctant to change anything of this nature.
As demonstrated recently, even the Pope is capable of stepping aside when it's best.
I've not been a HN member for long but the support for Stallman here is one of the most surprising things I've seen about this place.
For example, Dennis Kucinich made a great Congressman. That being said, he would most definitely not make a good President.
Richard Stallman is the same way. Is it a terrible idea to take all of his ideas and mold the programming community in his image? Yes. It would be impractical and completely insane to expect everyone to work for free. But that doesn't mean that we should completely discount everything that he says. There are great ideas in there right alongside the craziness.
Do you have any examples of him saying that code should be free of cost. As far as I know he has no problem with people charging for programs, only that the source code should be made available to recipients, along with rights to modify and redistribute (the latter obviously poses problems for business-schemes based upon artificial scarcity).
I also seem to recall him arguing for micropayment schemes to be used to finance developers (and artists), this is something which could perhaps become a reality in the (hopefully not too distant) future, as shown by successful kickstarter type projects like for example openshot:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/421164014/openshot-video...