Stallman surely realizes that minifying JavaScript is a standard process, but it doesn't seem particularly relevant to his point. First, it not straightforward

Stallman surely realizes that minifying JavaScript is a standard process, but it doesn't seem particularly relevant to his point. First, it not straightforward to determine the licensing for many scripts, and second it does not provide access to an unobfuscated copy of the source. In no way does he ask for JavaScript to be served without minification, but rather he asks that minified JS contain a pointer to a non-minified copy. Doing so doesn't create an additional cost for the site owner, beyond possibly requiring an extra step in a build script. I think you are pushing two distinct movements into the same box: the free software movement championed by Stallman, and the "get users first, monetize later" euphoria of the "Web 2.0" movement. The first group is pursuing a moral agenda; the second believes that it is a legitimate route to wealth. Much of what you are blaming Stallman for seems better directed at the second movement or at open source developers (who are often a very different breed than Stallman, and who--in my experience--tend to hate the GPL as an unnecessarily restrictive license). I also find your example of iPhone and Facebook applications as somewhat problematic. These platforms are ghettos where developers are dependent on the capricious rules and regulations provided by the owners. This is hard to ignore when you see traffic to applications dropping by a reported 50% after the latest redesign for Facebook, and also when independent apps like Podcaster (err, whatever the name was) barred from the AppStore because it competed with functionality that Apple's own apps provided. Opportunity abounds in both, but there are many many losers in both as well. The real winner in both these situations is Apple and Facebook. Asking forgiveness from Marx, when possible it is always best to be the landlord. My second to last point in this unfortunately disconnected response is that neither Stallman nor Web 2.0 have ever been the "guard". Both are and have always been fringe movements. The "guard" has always been large companies selling software to other large companies and making tremendous sums of money while doing so. Finally, people do get paid for open source contributions. It isn't straight forward, and the correlation between time spent and money returned is not predictable in the same way it is for an hourly consultant gig, but there is always money there for people who grasp it.