[tripzilch]

> people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRITICISE HIM?")

I have never seen anyone on HN say that or anything similar. Maybe you were thinking of some other place?

For myself, I've been giving Stallman's opinions a lot more weight since the Snowden revelations, since at that point a great many of his ideas instantly switched from "over-idealistic / ridiculous / almost paranoid" to "well what do you know, he actually was right all along!".

I am myself quite idealistic and concerned about privacy, free and/or open source software, personal liberties, etc. I just used to think Stallman was taking it a bit too far to the crazy side. Then Snowden happened and it turns out he was right about a lot of the things that I really thought went a bit too far "out there". Not all of the things, mind you, but enough of them to make me pause and give thought to his opinions, and try to take them seriously.

And it's probably my own bias, but on HN as well, it seems to me that his name and ideas have been discussed quite a bit more often after Snowden, than before.