I assumed this would be yet another "Stallman is gross and old-fashioned and dresses funny" article, but it's actually well-argued and reasonable. And, interest

I assumed this would be yet another "Stallman is gross and old-fashioned and dresses funny" article, but it's actually well-argued and reasonable. And, interestingly, in many regards it makes the case that Stallman isn't extreme enough to be effective (or rather, that while his extremism is very deep it is only in tightly focused areas, and misses the mark for making widespread change that positively effects the general population). As I age, I've kinda come to the conclusion that individualism being the driving motivation of so many people in tech (including both proprietary and Free Software advocates) means that we often miss the forest for the trees. Individualist decision-making doesn't solve a problem for the general public, in cases like this. Free Software "won", by some definition of won, the battle when it became the dominant server and mobile OS. But, it continues to lose the war for people's freedom. I don't actually have a philosophical framework to hang that bit of acquired wisdom on, however, because I, too, have a very individualist mindset that is deeply ingrained. So, coming up with actionable ideas for improving privacy (for example) on a non-individual level is proving difficult; my ideas, thus far, have included helping organize and host cryptoparties, contributing to projects that add encryption to more stuff on the Internet, etc. But, it requires policy, too, probably even moreso, which is far outside of my wheelhouse. Those cryptoparties reached mostly technical users. Those tools for encryption reach mostly technical people who already knew they wanted to encrypt their stuff. When profit motives are aligned against us (where "us" is the general public that is vaguely uncomfortable with being spied on all the time, by corporations and the state), it's tilting at windmills to stand there, using your Free OS and your Free browser and your Free whatever else, while the whole world uses facebook and Google dozens of times a day. There's only so much an individual can do.