Absolutely. I didn't mean to say he "only" changed my view, in case that's the impression. He is a great man, the entire (digital) world is built on his legacy so to say, yet barely anyone knows about him.

PS: little anecdote as I once went to an Apple Store and scrolled through the software licenses in the settings on an iPad of iOS and found one crediting Richard Stallman as the author. I just left it like that, thought it's funny having his name on an iPad in the Apple Store :p

Even if I don't agree with you on all of what you said I agree with most of it. Sound reasoning and all that. The autism/aspergers 'excuse' is definitely hard to accept given his history.

Regardless, someone like him simply shouldn't be at the positions he has held if the open source community is to gain progress.

I'm conflicted here. The fact that he's a weirdo is kind of irrelevant imo. He's philosophically uncompromising and unmoved by social pressure. The only thing separating him from most tech CEOs is that he lacks an organization investing millions into his health, image, publicity etc Most big time executives are degenerates but no one cares because they are good at what they do. I think he's good at making software free even if he's a socially inept [insert criticism here] in his personal life. Additionally I'm saying this as someone who disagrees with him on basically every other issue he takes a stand on.

I didn't know about him and ASD. Of course creating the environment in society at large (as opposed to small hidden spaces) for women, non-binary, gender diverse and other LGBTQ2SI+ folks is important.

I really don't know what a decent method forward is that looks like in a way that in the interim doesn't lead to issues like the surge of derision and cruelty towards trans folks in the UK. To me, this is evidently something that occurs towards neurodivergent or otherwise broadly defined individuals whom do not conform where gender is not the primary distinguishing factor (lingual, ethnic, etc.)