What hits the fan

I think it does not matter what a person says, but what a person does.
And as far as I can tell Linus gave us some fancy tools.
RMS gave us freedom.
If I cared about the first I would probably prefer all Adobe Products above GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, …

And btw: he has valid arguments against the missing acronym every time Linux is mentioned.

RMS practices what he preaches – I guess that’s part of the reason why he is considered to be annoying at times. I admire this capability to stick to his values at any price! I don’t see the point where he does not stick to what he says.
There are often people that get on other peoples nerves – if you don’t care about them, just ignore them and the “annoyance” they produce.

He also does not order people around: he has no power to do so. He says what he thinks is right! And he encourages people to do so – RMS only has the power to “order” things is through the GPL and maybe within the FSF afaik.

You may use Linux at work and at home – but you could argue that you use GNU/Linux at work and at home

If you don’t want to accept that RMS gives you freedom, but the GPL does it must be at least said that RMS was at least as much involved in it as Linus in his Kernel.

There are unchallenged facts that RMS bases his claim on calling the OS “GNU/*whaveverkernel*” – i know it is impractical and it seems a bit awkward but the arguments are valid.
When arguments boil down to “Because I say so” you are right to discard them. But then you could also argue that RMS just “invented” some four basic freedoms all by his own just to order people around – and that’s where I strongly disagree; His definition of what free software means makes sense to me – and in that sense he uses the sentences with no less “egoism” as the founding fathers would talk about their declaration of independence if asked for “arguments”.
RMS is one kind of people that clearly back up what they say and what they do by the values they represent. If you don’t agree with those values there is no problem – but you have to admitt he does not just “says what he wants”.

I see why RMS is so controversial, but I think it is wrong to judge him just based on his social behavior. Yes he may seem hardcore, but that doesn’t turn his causes into false causes.

I see him a bit as “the one politician that goes to climate conference without any plane or car”. I certainly couldn’t do that and certainly don’t expect others to do that, but he is doing the right thing. RMS fights for what he thinks is right very strongly – and I think everybody benefits from it.
People often think that he has the function to represent free software and has the role of a pr-manager, but he could not care less about market share or adoption rates; what he cares about is software freedom.

@”should”:
I just don’t see this: “…they certainly shouldn’t promote them…” as an order. (also not in the bigger context)

@judging:
You speak of his “funny ways” (wich he certainly has ) in a connection with the inability to cope with serious issues. One should separate the two issues and acknowldege that he is pretty capapble of handling politics; I think he has proven that his activities do have an impact. In fact things have not even “grown big”, because the initial impulse to start the free software movement was a political one right from the start.

@pr-manager:
people often talk about his “funny ways” proposing he should shut up and see what bad influence his behavior has on the public image of free software. But he is not detached from the political aspects of his activities. I just think he can handle politics very well. (not speaking of the ways)
So to speak: he has no reason to please people with his appearance or social behaviour like he probably WOULD have to if he was a pr-manager.

Hence my opinion on your original blogpost: I think he is right not only because of what he _did_ but what he is doing and saying now. The things he says and the things he is doing also match perfectly. – and all this has nothing to do with his funny ways.