[saagarjha]

The problem I have with Stallman is that he’s usually right, but he is remarkably horrible at coming across as someone with valid opinions. It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence, and calling companies and their products with stupid names is just childish. There are a lot of problems with companies, and Stallman is very good at recognizing them, but he’s just pretty bad at getting people to not consider him as somewhat crazy :/

[elagost]

Stallman is very much on one of the far ends of the technological spectrum, with, say, normal people with Android phones and Gmail and a Windows laptop on the other.

I think most people, given enough explanation, would recognize that Stallman and the FSF are 100% correct in their extremism and zealotry - but most aren't able to live without the convenience they've come to know and love.

It's important to have him on his end, so that him and those like him can balance out the other end, and that most people can reasonably fall more towards the middle. Can't have shadows without bright light.

[saagarjha]

> I think most people, given enough explanation, would recognize that Stallman and the FSF are 100% correct in their extremism and zealotry - but most aren't able to live without the convenience they've come to know and love.

Oh, yes, I'm very much of the opinion that they are right; the only reason I'm not joining them is because my Mac works well ;) I have nothing wrong with their "extremism"–the issue I have is that their attacks come across as childish, especially when they give things stupid names, and often they are pieced together by people who aren't actually experts in what they're complaining about and so they end up with evidence like "$NEWS_WEBSITE says this is bad", when the actual issue is something much more fundamental.

[throwawaymath]

Agreed. It's like when he writes about Facebook and calls people "useds" instead of "users." Many of his opinions could be (or are) compelling and well-defended, but many of them are tangled up with his hostile (and sometimes childish) style of argumentation.

I wish he would tone it down sometimes, for lack of a better phrase. He doesn't have to compromise on his ideology to polish up his essays with less polarizing style. His arguments are already controversial, and he doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already agree with him by insisting on writing this way.

EDIT: Well apparently this is a controversial comment...the score just keeps going up and down.

[flycaliguy]

Once you get over that hurdle, he really is a valuable resource. Like, we all kind of have that problem with him I think, but the guy still earns his seat at the table. In fact, buddy sorta set the table...

I just don’t see him as the type that needs to be publicly polished. Why does he have to be? He’s a character, I like it.

[saagarjha]

I think he should be publicly polished because him not being so gets in the way of spreading what he has to say, and allows for people to ignore him because he's "that crazy old man that isn't relevant" even though he actually has useful things to say.

[sandov]

I agree that communicating things differently would convince more people, but on the other hand, the man is like he is, and I dislike when people try to mold you to fit their person stereotype, almost like you can't be different from the rest.

[will4274]

I find the stupid names childish, but I don't think the evidence is cherry picked at all. Linking six different examples of Apple bowing to China's censorship isn't cherry picking, it's making the point well. I wish more writers had Stallman's obsession with linking previous material on a topic.

[deogeo]

How is giving examples of misbehavior 'cherry-picking'?

[saagarjha]

They're random news articles that seem like they were the result of searching for "Apple is bad" on your favorite AGPLv3 search engine. They don't actually provide evidence for the real issues (merely hinting at them from a bunch of different angles), and they're don't appear to be very well researched or even necessarily provide details about the issue. In short, it's just spewing random "transgressions" without a coherent argument behind it, when there is totally one that could be made if he put in a bit of effort.

[auslander]

"usually right" and "with clearly cherry-picked evidence" dont come together

[gist]

> It is disingenuous to come to the table with clearly cherry-picked evidence

It's a bit like women finding reasons not to like a man (or men in general) or vice versa. [1]

It shows (and I don't know the psych term for it) a very rigid 'good or bad' way of thinking. Life in general is a series of tradeoffs and thinking the way Stallman does just leads to unhappiness. And no question when you become that bitter (in that particular way) you are not happy.

[1] Not sure if Stallmen mentioned or not how Apple and Jobs in particular (at least as reported and popular culture) treated those around him. You know what? I don't care at all about that.

Edit: Note he says 'reasons not to use' he doesn't say 'things that I don't like about Apple'. For that matter he doesn't even say 'reasons I don't use Apple' he is clearly implying that he thinks people in general should not use Apple.

[ashildr]

He‘s the annoying vegan of free software...

[gatherhunterer]

"Annoying vegans" are usually associated with baseless moral grandstanding by their detractors. Someone who meticulously cites their sources and allows those citations to do the arguing for him seems like the exact opposite.

[saagarjha]

FWIW, it's possible to be both a moral grandstander and meticulously cite sources: for example, consider a vegan who says it's morally wrong to kill animals (which, depending on your worldview, could be baseless), but also cites sources saying that eating meat is a bad choice for the environment (which is easily citable).

[gatherhunterer]

No one was making a comment on veganism. I guess an opportunity to grandstand was too hard to pass up.