Hear Hear, well said !!!!

As a subscriber to the lists referenced I can wholeheartedly confirm both the detail and sentiment of that expressed above.

Over the years I have had the privilege of both meeting RMS and hearing him speak on occasion. Yes, I am sure that he can appear pedantic to many, but IMHO we all owe him a debt of gratitude for his efforts right across the world. Make no mistake, the world is better place for having him in it and for his activism and efforts in so many varied fields and spheres. He is perhaps one of the worlds genius eccentrics and it is I think a very sad reflection upon our society when we can no longer apparently accommodate someone and allow those to deliberately miss-quote and other wise twist and obfuscate what is has been said both in fact and meaning.

In many ways, the Free Software Movement mirrors large elements of our society or try's to show us how many right-thinking people would like society to be. However, there are those in the corridors of power, the press and beyond who would seek to quash and silence it by pulling every possible politically correct argument and accusation to do so.

I am reminded of the words or Cicero:-

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague. — Marcus Tullius Cicero, from a speech given to the Roman Senate, recorded in approximately 42 B.C. by Sallust.