It's 2022 and it's close to impossible for you and me to own a computer that we control. Even the thought of owning a computer we control is now seen as "extreme". If we did go through hops to have a machine that we control, it'd be practically impossible to use it to communicate with our friends and family, because all of our communications go through third party servers that we do not control.

In exactly which way is Stallman being inflammatory here?

This is because 99.99% of the population wouldn’t know what to do with such a device. Computers are consumer devices, they can’t be expected to meet demands for total user control without those users shooting themselves in the foot nonstop. This is the only logical way they can develop.

The question was: "In exactly which way is Stallman being inflammatory here? "

Nothing you say addresses that.

By framing playing virtually all video games in existence as being "bad for you".

I think this can actually be a good tactic. If someone thinks of something like games as entirely good or bad, they will never understand the argument. Many people love alcohol but know it’s bad for them. Many people love games but know that digital restrictions work against them. It’s probably the easiest example to onboard people to the FSF’s ideas because the restrictions on games are so apparent.

I use plenty of proprietary software, but I also know it’s bad for me. Like someone who enjoys alcohol, I think the benefits are worth the negative effects, but whenever I can get the same benefits from free software, I prefer them. I keep one computer around that runs only free software, and it’s great. It’s a decade old, but gains on desktop software performance in the last decade have been slow.

Even Stallman gives one reason to use proprietary software: to make a free version of it. I’ll offer a liberal interpretation of that rule: most people work in technology need to use a wide variety of proprietary software to understand trends and developments in software paradigms, even if they are not directly copying it while using it.

And my prediction: one day, all software will become free. All proprietary software is only temporarily restricted. Future computers will be able to reverse-engineer any existing program and create code that is functionally identical. That still makes it harmful, but that harm will eventually end. We just have the responsibility to make better laws in the future. Most important is preserving political freedom, and software freedom will eventually follow.

I read that more to mean that by playing games that are non-free, you are fueling the existence of more non-free games, and thus doing damage to yourself in the sense of "freedom" since you are perpetuating non-free software. The game itself is not causing harm to you.

> I read that more to mean that by playing games that are non-free ...

If it has to be interpreted, it is poorly communicated.

Aren't most activist movements led – to a great extent – by people who take rather maximalist positions? This is true in areas which have nothing to do with free software.

In a way, it is a form of society-wide bargaining. Ask for everything, get something. Ask for something, get nothing. Start big, end up small; start small, end up nowhere.

Yes. See Taleb’s concept of the most intolerant minority getting their way.

To most people in France in 1789 it was an extreme position to take power and shortly after put Louis XVI to the guillotine but two-something centuries after most are thankful this happened

Put a bunch of smart, pragmatic people in a room and you’ll only end up with the current state of the software industry. The stricter the rules, the more durable the movement.

He could definitely benefit from coming across as more pleasant and affable, though.

He's extremely dogmatic, and so far his movement really doesn't seem to be working? Hard to way how much of that is his fault, though.

I'm interested in what you would consider success in the free software movement? GPL'd software is everywhere, Linux is a household name, proprietary competitors have been consistently overshadowed and made irrelevant. We are nowhere near a 100% free software world, but it's far better than 10 or 20 years ago, let alone 30+.

The FSF has been chronically incapable of doing anything about SaaS. What good is GPL software if I'm forced to use an opaque version of it in a device out of my control to do my business? The FSF made the AGPL as a stopgap but it's been an unpopular license.

So no, the world just moved proprietary software to the cloud with parts spun-off and GPLed on paper.