[b3kart]

A good point re him having two roles. Speaking your mind and expressing yourself freely are both paramount for a good thinker, while both are anathemas for anything that has to do with people’s opinion and politics. Maybe the two roles just don’t combine very well.

[throwanem]

It might be similar to the concept of code-shifting in linguistics. That depends on the ability to "read a room", and whatever Stallman's virtues, that has never seemed to me to be among his skills.

To draw a comparison which will certainly infuriate everyone, Stallman might usefully be considered as a Wozniak desperately in need of a Jobs.