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I have a pet theory about why so many[1] people find him "threatening". I believe it's because people do think it's important what he talks about - but feel he talks about it in the Wrong Way[TM]. Anecdotal data points to support my view: The most hateful comments against Stallman usually appear in highly technical forums - I have yet to see that amount of negativism in the comment sections of main-stream media articles about him. Most technical people, I think, know very well what free software is, and how, generally, it helps us getting stuff done. You would be hard pressed to find a programmer nowadays who has never used any free software for his or her programs. Even if they "only" used Eclipse to write proprietary enterprise code. Yet, some technical people are - it seems - completely against free software, and completely against RMS. But consider: They wouldn't rally against Stallman if they didn't care about free software at all ("Ah, that freedom guy again, how cares"). They wouldn't rally against him, if they thought that free software was completely stupid ("Ah, that freedom guy again, well that whole free software thing will be going down the drain, anyway"). No, the only real reason to say something against Stallman is if you are supportive of free software as an idea - but think that he spoils it. If you think about that, then the people writing the most hateful comments (minus the trolls, of course) are the ones that support, and care about, the idea the most. And with that conclusion I can accept these comments, knowing that the idea of free software still has supporters, and still has people caring. Caring so much, in fact, that they even feel they have to insult a human being to get their point across - because it's obviously _that_ important. More important than Stallman. I also have some anecdotes of why their fear of Stallman "spoiling" the idea is ungrounded: None of my non-technical friends know Stallman. None. Not one. Some do know Linus Torvalds "wrote Linux", some run Ubuntu on their laptops, and some know what open source means - but nobody of them thinks RMS is the sole speaker of the free software movement, as it were. I believe that even if they'd ever read an interview with him they would still be able to separate the idea of free software from the person Richard Stallman. [1] I mean "many" here more in the sense of loudness, not necessarily of quantity - on the internet, nobody knows you're holding forty-two anti-Stallman accounts. |