[Discuss] Stallman stubborn

[mbr at arlsoft.com (MBR)]

About Stallman being "stubborn", I think that's a good thing, or at 
least a necessary thing.  He is, after all, the founder of a movement 
that has had worldwide impact.  And founders of movements are, more 
often than not, stubborn and difficult to deal with.  In its obituary 
for Betty Friedan, the New York Times described her as "famously 
abrasive", "thin-skinned and imperious, subject to screaming fits of 
temperament."  Napoleon Bonaparte was notoriously stubborn and seldom 
delegated authority. Moses famously smashed the Tablets of the Law when 
his followers misbehaved.  OK, maybe Stallman's not Moses.  But both 
Gates and Jobs have reputations as being at least as stubborn and 
difficult to deal with as Stallman, and they weren't trying to change 
the paradigm.  They were merely creating and running big companies under 
the existing paradigm.

I don't think it's possible for a movement of this sort to come into 
existence without a notoriously stubborn leader.

    Mark Rosenthal


On 11/10/15 3:56 PM, Rich Pieri wrote:
> RMS can be.... Hm. Stubborn is a nicely politic word to use. He can be 
> stubborn about words and what they mean in his mind. In a recent 
> discussion about English words that mean free as in freedom in which 
> he lamented the necessity of borrowing libre I suggested the word 
> independence (as in "Declaration of"). Independence (or independent) 
> software, as in independent from onerous, burdensome licenses.
>
> His response was, and I quote, "I don't buy it."
>
> I wasn't terribly surprised. RMS has gone on record that he listens to 
> advice and criticism only from his supporters.
>