[rcade]

Regarding your blog entry, I don't think it's instructive to compare the way adults respond to an extremely blunt spoken person to your child being bullied. Stallman's an adult who doesn't pull punches -- he described Steve Jobs as "evil" right after his death. Is it bullying for him to get counterpunched, or just robust dialogue? I vote door number two.

As for your kid being bullied, you need to be all over that issue as a parent. No kid should have to endure it as the price for attending school.

[lukeschlather]

I have no problem with people counter-punching Stallman on the issues. If you think that the closed iOS/Apple ecosystem is good and not evil, please, I want to hear your argument. But I heard very few people making that argument. The arguments tended to just be character assassination. Stallman lacks social graces, he doesn't recognize that it's necessary to be polite when someone dies, therefore his views are automatically irrelevant.

So I do think it's bullying, unless you're going to address the substance of the argument rather than its tactfulness.

[srdev]

I think the argument, with regards to Jobs, was rather that Stallman was inappropriate on writing his statements so soon after Job's death. Edit: To clarify, the bulk of the arguments where not against his ideas but rather directly concerned with his behavior. I don't consider it character assassination. The counter-argument was that he was correct, which does not actually excuse the way he stated it. You can say something correct in the wrong manner.

Now, regarding the rider for speaking engagement, I would agree that the outright mocking seen there was uncouth.