His internet habits have come to pass for a few reasons. He is extremely security conscious. He doesn't like "active" content and so uses a script to download

His internet habits have come to pass for a few reasons. He is extremely security conscious. He doesn't like "active" content and so uses a script to download the web pages he wants to read for later browsing from an off-network computer. This has nothing to do with the license status of the JavaScript. Do you run IE? Or do you run Firefox or Chrome with ad blocking? He prefers not to trade personal information to pay for access to communications platforms that have little additional utility to e-mail from his perspective. I'd disagree that this is detached from reality. He just doesn't hang out in the same bar as you. Regarding the GCC, he's made a calculated trade-off of modularity and simplicity for the sake of the GPL's "walled city" of free software. Complecting for effect, if you will. As for his opinion of non-copyleft software, I think you'd need to qualify your "can't work" phrase. I say this because I think he's absolutely right if we qualify the phrase as "can't work to protect consumer's long-term freedom." I would disagree with your characterization if you are claiming RMS thinks that only copy-left licensed software can be successful. I'm fairly sure RMS sees both Windows and Mac OS X as harmful successes.