I agree about the absolutist black/white world view but it is unclear to me how RMS is a misanthrope. Skimming the whole discussion on that mailing list it's also apparent to me that - while RMS did go offtopic by advising people to not use Facebook - poor social skills were in fact exhibited by the next commenter who replied to him in a very sarcastic and hostile way.
Taking the subject matter into account it would have made sense to instead chastise Stallman for exploiting an entirely different discussion (apparently about some student project) and injecting his own absolutist view into the original story that was at best only tangentially connected to Facebook.
Well, there is the mailing list incident where, when someone congratulated another contributor on the birth of their child, Stallman labelled the entire phenomenon of childbirth as "menacing" and went on to say "these birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation."
Not to get into the whole discussion about whether that was the right forum or etc, but by definition I'd say being generally anti-humanity-propogating-itself meets the bar for "misanthropy".
> You see, I make software for most of my living. And I talked with Stallman (in email) before the show, about how I would love to get any ideas he has on how a developer, of proprietary software, can move that software to a Free and Open license… while still keeping food on the table for his family. From a practical standpoint.
> This is a topic that has come up time and again. And I really wanted to get Stallman’s thoughts on the matter.
> So, near the beginning of the interview, I ask him about that. How does someone like me make the move to working on only Free Software and still support his family?
> The end result was that he feels that all developers and businesses of proprietary software should fail. And that it is more important for there to not be proprietary software… than it is to be able to feed your children.
> I’m not kidding. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not putting words in his mouth. I even asked him, point blank, to verify his stance.
> He did not say that having Free Software is more important than kids having food to eat. I repeat: He said that it was more important that non-free software be gone… than for you to be able to feed your kids. That’s how evil he thinks non-free software is. Evil enough to justify causing significant harm to your family to do away with a small amount of it. (Of course this isn’t the first time Stallman has been anti-children.)
Do you care to elaborate? Your whole blog post is spent describing his rude tone, not addressing any of the content of his remarks.
It is really, really not obvious to me whether the world would be better off if you and I stopped writing proprietary software, did something else as a career, and wrote free software as a hobby. That is a hard question. My intuition agrees with Stallman.
Whether or not you agree too, it's obvious from his published opinions that he has thought hard about (and acted in accordance with) the specific goal: what helps humanity the most? That is the clear point of his answer to you and it is the polar opposite of misanthropy.
Taking the subject matter into account it would have made sense to instead chastise Stallman for exploiting an entirely different discussion (apparently about some student project) and injecting his own absolutist view into the original story that was at best only tangentially connected to Facebook.