[sph]

Meanwhile everybody knows what GNU is, who Stallman is, what free software is, and what that "lunatic", to paraphrase you, is all about.

His methods might've been of a lunatic indeed, but it's on you to argue that Free Software would have grown further than what it is today with a more mild mannered person at the helm.

I disagree completely with this proposition. You need crazy zealots to change the world: no one will accept their extreme view of the world, but choose a more moderate version of their message. And so the zealot has succeeded in his mission. Examples in history abound, whereas mild-mannered people don't go very far in radically changing the status quo.