It seems that he's become less practical and more radical over time, though. When asked, he doesn't program very much any more, devoting his time instead to championing free software in an idea that some (such as Alexey) would argue isn't practical.
Actually, rms 'won' his initial battle, which was having a free operating system. Now there are thousands of people helping free softwares to improve. He would be just another programmer if he keeps coding.
What im trying to say is, if he doesnt code anymore, its probably because he doesnt think that would be a necessary contribution anymore.
> He would be just another programmer if he keeps coding.
Wouldn't that be better than being just a gadfly? At least that's my impression; RMS will appear on some group or maillist, drop a bomb, tell everyone they're doing it wrong, and then disappear while the flamewar blazes, accomplishing nothing constructive in the process.
And, in this community, everyone's status is based primarily on their programming, including Richard Stallman's.
> RMS did incredible programming work in the 70s,80s
No he didn't! He wrote a text editor, a compiler and a library. It's not like he's the only person ever to do that. He also had a lot of help from others. He isn't the sole author of EMACS, GCC or glibc.
You're only counting his Unix stuff. He's credited on the chine nual[0], he wrote bit-twiddling hacks, he published an AI paper with Sussman, etc. His WP page mentions a bunch of stuff.
Yep and He also was a one man reverse engineering army during the lisp machine war.
His programming skills are really good.
His personality is another thing.
