[kijin]

If you think of the Overton Window as a multidimensional space with multiple axes, RMS does occupy a location close to (although perhaps not exactly at) one or another edge of it. Regardless of whether he is wrong or right, he has done a great deal of work stretching the edges of, and drawing attention to, the part of the Overton Window that he occupies. In fact, it's the whole point of the Overton Window argument that even wrong views can often be useful in the grand scheme of things. So I don't think your exceptions to GP's argument are valid.

Also, lots of people have hopelessly romantic views about the group to which they belong (or used to belong). At least in that respect, RMS is not unique at all. But the fact that he falls prey to this common error is not very relevant when we ask whether it is indeed "evil" to make proprietary software, or any other current issue that RMS rants about. (We don't evaluate Peter Thiel's startup advice on the basis of his odd philosophical commitments, do we?)

[bluekeybox]

> But the fact that [RMS] falls prey to this common error is not very relevant when we ask whether it is indeed "evil" to make proprietary software, or any other current issue that RMS rants about.

I believe it is relevant when discussing RMS views. What you call "romanticism" of a group is only one of several possible romanticisms. There is also the romanticism of an individual, the romanticism of a family, the romanticism of a partnership etc. The point is that RMS was guided by a romanticism at the moment he was starting the GNU project as he himself described in the copy included with every Emacs install, and moreover his romanticism was of a very specific, (I believe) noninclusive and dysfunctional kind. This is rarely discussed for some reason, when even people who deep down disagree with RMS put on a guilty face and speak of the man as if he was just one of those rare idealists whom the world badly needs, and as if they do not dare to question his supposed integrity. This breeds orthodoxy besides other things because of which this thread is here.

[kijin]

If we're talking about the man, then you may be right. Few humans are worth constructing an orthodoxy around every aspect of their lives, and RMS ain't one of them.

But as far as ideas are concerned, I think RMS's romanticization of MIT hackers is severable from most of his well-known stances on software freedom. I think ESR's article has more to do with RMS's ideas than with the man himself. If (Microsoft|Apple|Facebook) are evil, they are evil no matter what RMS smoked in his MIT days. If it's counterproductive to treat them as evil, then it's counterproductive even if RMS turns out to be God's only nephew.