He's a fairly important figure in free software. Probalby more like a godfather than a father I'd say. He lives what he preaches and he means it. I respect that. He sees any software (including firmware and video games) as bad unless you get a copy of the software so that you can modify it. His own license adds more stipulation to that like "if you distribute this software you have to release the code (and copyrights notices) that goes with it or make it available to those distributed to so they can modify it for their own use and this license is sticky". It's a bit more complicated than that but that's the jist. I think people who dismiss him as a nut should revisit how many times they've complained they are stuck with software/hardware that they can't get to work like they want or repair it because the company is defunct or refuses to fix old (non-lucrative) software/firmware.