Someone who doesn't alienate a significant part of the community would be a good start (which all occurred long before the whole business with the Minsky comments). That he jump-started things or "is right" isn't actually all that important for effective advocacy; if I were to start my reply with "you asshole!" then you're not very likely to listen to what I have to say. To be honest I don't understand how people fail to understand there's a difference between "being right" and "being someone people listen to".

"Nobody listens to him" and still the likes of Microsoft now develop predominantly in the open.

You don't need to persuade everyone, sometimes it's just enough to witness your truth. Ask christians.

> "Nobody listens to him" and still the likes of Microsoft now develop predominantly in the open.

Stallman had exactly zero influence on that shift.

That shift is the result of millions of other little shifts made over the last 4 decades, which he definitely had a hand in enabling.

Not inducing the backlash effect, probably.

I have spent too long being right but an arsehole. I never got my ideas into production that way, even though the existing codebase was patently a trough of piss. I learned to stfu and, generally, they came round. Don't rub people's noses in it, especially if they make decisions you care about.

There is almost no issue so black-and-white that a person can't find a technical justification for any given point of view. So don't drive people to oppose you from simple bloody-mindedness.