I attended an RMS lecture about free software and the GNU movement. To me, RMS just seems to be too paranoid about "non-free" software to the point that it just seems impractical.
He spoke about LibreJS and about why we should complain, but I wasn't really convinced due to the exact same reason you mentioned.
RMS is not paranoid, he is extremely consistent in applying his philosophy. He shows by example what it's like to use only free software.
For the rest of us, his ways are extremely impractical, so we compromise. We run a lot of proprietary software, and we don't really think about it.
But RMS thinks about it, and tells us in every single instance exactly what we are giving up as a compromise. And in that regard he, and the FSF, are very useful, and deserves respect.
The world would be a worse place without him, but we also only really need one of him.
He usually says that we give up freedom in exchange of convenience. For example Facebook is convenient so, who cares about privacy ?
I don't use LibreJS or plan to use it either, but I think his points are valid theoretically, implement them in our society is pretty hard but my point is, these libre tools being "impractical" doesn't invalidate the philosophical idea behind. I'd would call him idealist rather than a paranoid.
Let's not forget that he's the impractical idealist who created gcc, bison, emacs, make, the GPL. I'd bet >70% of people here work with a complete or almost-completely free software stack. Thousands of startups were probably made possible by access to tools – not just because they couldn't afford it otherwise, but also because a large part of cs education depends on a 12-year old's ability to clone stuff on github.
It's still paranoia at the end of the day. Consistent paranoia, thoughtful paranoia, but still, ultimately, paranoia.
I think what bothers people about Stallman (or at least, what bothers me about him, and extrapolating) is that he takes a moralistic approach. Non free software isn't a non optimal thing to be fixed for well-thought-out reasons X, Y, and Z, it is an Evil, and you are Wrong for perpetuating it.
The actual issue is that proprietary software puts you in a position where you can be taken advantage of. Free software puts you in a position where that can't happen. Sure, you can have proprietary software that doesn't spy on you. But much of it does, and even though it doesn't spy on you today it could spy on you tomorrow.
So, if you consider "putting people in a situation where they have no control over their lives" as bad (I do), then the concept of proprietary software is wrong -- not just the ones that happen to misuse their power.
Did you read what I said? I never mentioned security. More secure software is not the goal of free software. The goal is for users to have freedom when using their computers. And it is a simple fact that proprietary software puts you in a position where you can be taken advantage of by the software developer and free software doesn't (you can always pay a developer to fix the code without needing to ask the original developer -- this is unique to the free software world).
So, please stop putting words in my mouth. I never mentioned security, I'm talking about freedom.
>And it is a simple fact that proprietary software puts you in a position where you can be taken advantage of by the software developer and free software doesn't
Two (non security, as you mentioned, even though it's brought up continually by apologists) examples off the top of my head:
* FileZilla, a GPLed FTP client, had malware added to its installer by Sourceforge at the request of its developers.
* Ubuntu, an operating system composed entirely of free software, started sending search data in its UI to third parties without prior notice.
If you think it's impossible for the developer to take advantage of you because their software is "free", you simply aren't being imaginative enough.
In both of those cases, people either created forks or otherwise fixed the software. I recall several scripts people wrote to undo the Ubuntu mishap -- and I'm fairly sure someone made a fork of Ubuntu just to make a point. The point is not that a developer can't do something bad, the developer can't put you in a position where you can't do anything about it. That's what I mean by "take advantage". It's not really taking advantage of a person if they can fix it at any point.
Aside: I don't think that security is a good argument for free software, because it's certainly possible to have secure proprietary software (in theory at least). But even if the software is secure, you can't prove that's the case or fix bugs by yourself or release the fixes to everyone.
