I'm of the opinion that he doesn't have to be a perfect human being; sometimes it's hard to disentangle facts from all the character assassination attempts that

I'm of the opinion that he doesn't have to be a perfect human being; sometimes it's hard to disentangle facts from all the character assassination attempts that are thrown at him, and that's why I think we should rein in our emotions and not talk so passionately. I also think that the enemies of free and libre open source software definitely don't want us to be able to have a civil debate, so they probably send shills to derail conversations (it's an asymmetric war, after all). If we look back at historic movements, they weren't always led by people that were perfect by every metric (source: Behind The Bastards multi-volume episodes on Clarence Thomas, where they mention that some people that advanced equality in regards to racism were at the same time misogynistic, and didn't consider it worthwhile to advance women's rights). As long as Stallman is a steward for the things we hold dear, I'm of the opinion that it's a good thing for us... Despite his flaws as a person, but with the condition that he get with the times and improve his behavior.