What's different about the way you see things is the fact that you care about those things or at least are interested in them. RMS' approach tends to fall down

What's different about the way you see things is the fact that you care about those things or at least are interested in them. RMS' approach tends to fall down when he's trying to convey his points to a larger audience that doesn't have an inherent interest in what he's talking about. He tends to take as self-evident why people should care about the things that he cares about, and goes straight to arguing about his position on those things. If the intended audience for his philosophies were only some especially elite group of hackers, that'd be fine (although it'd still be a pretty hard sell for a lot of them :), but I think he sees his intended audience as being all of humanity. When he talks about why Free Software matters, he might be more convincing if he spent more time talking about why openness matters, or even why software matters period. I have a feeling he's so deep into his world that he actually can't see things from the perspective of someone who doesn't understand why software itself is an important thing (never mind how it should be written or distributed). Tangent: I agree with a lot of the principles that he stands for, but have a hard time trusting his thought processes. Whenever I've read his writings about the origins of his philosophy or the justifications for it, it always seemed like he decided up front what he wanted his philosophy to be, then retconned a bunch of really detailed and articulate rationalizations for it. I don't get the impression that he burns any cycles trying to understand other people's perspectives or playing Devil's Advocate against himself. That's why whenever anyone talks about his consistency as being a virtue (and they always do), it actually makes me trust his reasoning even less.