No, not the community. Richard Stallman. In any community - social, religious, utility - you have those people on the fringes. How hard they hang off the edge,

No, not the community. Richard Stallman. In any community - social, religious, utility - you have those people on the fringes. How hard they hang off the edge, and how many they can convert to "edgers" informs where the average point will be. So if the moderate software moralist is half way between Bill Gates and Richard Stallman, one would imagine that the mean average would be slightly left leaning, slightly pro FOSS, but ultimately pragmatic. Were Bill Gates any more megalomaniacal, or Richard Stallman any more bonkers, the mean might shift. The problem lies with the repugnance. Only those already willing to feel the pain are willing to align with RMS fully. To most of the rest of the world, we see pieces like this and bristle; we recognise that freedom + cost = nonfree - it's not free if we're shackling ourselves to a system that we can't use properly, or have to cart around dongles to duplicate the functionality already theoretically in our machines. However keenly we do or don't recognise the moral shackles, we'll certainly recognise the convenience shackles. Of course, FOSS isn't RMS' only soapbox. His GNU/Linux stance - to the point where he insists podcasts and publications change their name or he'll pull out last minute - creates a second repugnant pull in another direction. Again, the shackles are obvious, the moral imperative not so obvious, the sanity of the flag-bearer even less obvious. So yeah, you're not alone in it pushing you away. Thankfully, everyone within a standard deviation of the mean will ignore his ravings as he hangs on the edge. As the mean shifts, so will how far off the edge he hangs (until he drops). Feel free to go as close to the edge as you feel comfortable. And for everything else, shake your head and whisper (not my president) :D