I'm reminded of this comment[1] by screenplay author David Simon:
"Labour doesn't get to win all its arguments, capital doesn't get to. But it's in the tension, it's in the actual fight between the two, that capitalism actually becomes functional, that it becomes something that every stratum in society has a stake in, that they all share."
Total devotion to pure ideology is always the wrong answer, because it implies hubris: that a problem has been totally solved, no further research is needed. People like Stallman, Gates, Rand, and Marx give us clear distillations that are really good as solving some problems, often before others even realize those problems even exist.
As the above quote points out, these ideologies are not final, total solutions on their on. It is the conflict between them that bring the best results. From that conflict a good long-term planning pragmatist can try and pick out the parts that work and fix the parts that don't. Refactoring and bugfixing may not be fun, but they do keep the world working.
My thoughts exactly. I don't think anyone would like to sacrifice convenience for freedom the way Stallman does, but to me he is the maximum of the "How free can we be" scale. I believe he reminds everyone (especially open source developers) that there is always room for more freedom in the sofware we create and use, in the behaviors we engage in, and in the data we release. He remains in the software crowd's mentality reminding us that there is always room for more freedom for the user.
In short he's not the Leader we want to follow, he's the Explorer telling us of the harshful yet free landscapes he lives in. We may not want to go and live where he is, but there are things we can apply back in our world.
