I've often thought that Stallman was too prickly as spokesman or organisational leader, but I've never regarded him as being too extreme from a free software, i

I've often thought that Stallman was too prickly as spokesman or organisational leader, but I've never regarded him as being too extreme from a free software, ideological perspective. His thinking along those lines has always been meticulously careful and he generally sought out and found extremely competent legal advise. His basic mode of argumentation is to point out various legal exploits and note that there was no good reason to assume that government and industry won't abuse them if given the right set of circumstances. It's a mystery why every ten years we have to have this discussion about whether we've entered a new age of ethical business and responsible government, where we somehow think that human nature and human organisations have changed permanently (through technological innovation!) in some egalitarian way.