I generally want to agree with you on separating honorary doctorates from those earned through explicit academic achievement, and I think you're right that one

I generally want to agree with you on separating honorary doctorates from those earned through explicit academic achievement, and I think you're right that one shouldn't go ahead and call themselves a doctor for having received a honorary degree, or fifteen. The tone I don't agree with, based on my understanding of honorary degrees. I haven't heard of honorary doctorates being handed out to just random people who did nothing but showed up, nor for just being pals with someone. Where I live, honorary degrees seem to be awarded to people with distinctive achievement in the industry, politics, the arts, or in other areas of society. That's not "literally nothing but showing up", and you make it sound like none of those people did anything to be worth a distinction. Maybe the culture of awarding honorary degrees is different in different countries, but my understanding is that they're valid acknowledgements of contribution, although not for academic work. As for Stallman, whether you like him or not, and whether you even agree with his ideas of free software or not, it would be silly to say he has done nothing, or that he hasn't achieved and contributed something. And assuming that a honorary degree is not just "imaginary" but an acknowledgement of achievement or contribution, maybe fifteen actually is more than one or none. Still not a normal academic degree (and certainly not several), but perhaps indicative of higher impact or contribution than one. So, I agree that honorary degrees should generally not be treated the same as normal academic degrees. I can see how, especially if you've put in the explicit work for a doctorate, seeing someone get the same for "free" (i.e. without putting in the explicit effort for just that) could be frustrating and seem wrong. But the tone you used was IMO way too dismissive in general, so I strongly disagree with the rest of it.