Your observations don't correlate with the actual political opinions of prominent advocates of what boils down to the ages-old free software vs open source split. You don't need to look further than ESR for a striking counterexample.
Well I certainly agree that nobody should take him seriously but I'm unconvinced that that matches up with reality. His blog does get a lot of comments.
Actually, no. I'm not talking about open vs closed source. I'm talking about HOW the source is open (GPL vs BSD et al). ESR is mostly a centerist when it comes to that.
Neither was I? "Open Source vs Free Software" is exactly about BSD/MIT/... vs GPL. As a cofounder of the OSI, ESR is most certainly not a centrist on that. To quote Wikipedia on the OSI: "The Open Source Initiative chose the term "open source," in founding member Michael Tiemann's words, to "dump the moralizing and confrontational attitude that had been associated with 'free software'" and instead promote open source ideas on "pragmatic, business-case grounds.""
