> Political economy affects all of us, in scads of ways. If we want to
> be less alienated, anxious, and exposed to the risk of climate
> catastrophe, it would help to learn something about it. This is
> supposed to be democratic, self-governing society, right? I don't see
> how there would be similar social benefits from the masses learning
> Unix line commands.
I realize you're probably being hyberbolic about the command lines, but part of Stallman's point of discouraging use of even free-beer proprietary formats is to spur development of free-speech ones, including free-speech GUIs. Linux installation, for example, is now nicely brain-dead.
I used to think him overly idealistic too, but his seemingly extreme positions have turned out relevant to very workaday issues like DVD region coding, what you can play your iTunes on, DRM, and shrinking fair use. And the way many recruiters want your resume in Word.
Stallman admits that there are probably more pressing issues, but that this is the sort of thing he's good at. And in this arena we still have viable choices!
-- Andy