Godwin aside, he makes a good point, which is that just being an uncompromising idealist is not always commendable. A person may stick with the same ideology or message for various reasons - maybe because the philosophy really is true/best, or maybe because the person is to egotistical to change, or for many other reasons. We shouldn't be respecting people solely because they are unwilling to change - instead respect should be based on the actual views and the merits thereof.
I wasn't comparing the men. I was comparing the arguments. Which means that Godwin's law doesn't apply. And all of the folks down voting me are Nazis.
Nah, they're the ones who also respect Hitler - they're up voting you. ;-)
One difference is that Stallman is a reasonable man. If you could put together a watertight argument that proprietary software is better than free software, I think Stallman would become a proprietary software advocate. Is Stallman being uncompromising by rejecting hand-waving arguments, or merely following a logical conclusion based on stronger evidence?