The point is not to compare proprietary software to slavery. The point is that Stallman does not find proprietary software bad for the user, he finds it morally wrong.
That means in this case it doesn't make sense to complain and argue about his answer to the developer, as his answer makes perfect sense given his premises. If you want to disagree with his advice, you have to disagree with his moral position on proprietary software and argue about that.
Expecting Stallman to help someone make money with proprietary software is like expecting a vegan advocate to help someone kill cows more humanely.
Note that I'm not expressing an agreement or disagreement with Stallman's worldview, only that his answer is exactly what follows from his worldview, and you should argue about that and not about the answer.
You may want to reread my original post carefully.
> I truly hope that you are wrong and Stallman does not believe proprietary software to be an evil on par with slavery.
I can't claim to know the internal ranking of evil things in Stallman's mind, but nonfree software is very clearly beyond the line of unjustifiable evil for him.
"While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical.", from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
> tjader: but nonfree software is very clearly beyond the line of unjustifiable evil for him
> Stallman: "we consider them all equally unethical."
This is my whole point in a nutshell; unethical and evil are NOT synonymous words and you keep treating them that way. Wage theft is unethical and should be criminal. Slavery is evil.
> Expecting Stallman to help someone make money with proprietary software is like expecting a vegan advocate to help someone kill cows more humanely.
Many vegans are actually doing exactly that: enacting laws to improve the living conditions of animals. In the Netherlands we have the "party for the animals" in parliament for that. While their long-term goal is the elimination of meat, they also realize this is not realistic/practical in the short-term for various reasons. In the meanwhile they've been fairly successful in putting the topic of animal suffering on the agenda, making meaningful proposals to improve things, and hopefully coming closer to the long-term goals
I happen to be vegan (well, mostly anyway). Yes, you have the "extreme" vegans you might encounter on occasion, which me and my vegan friends tend to dislike as well, but most are significantly more pragmatic than you might think. It's just that you hear less from them as they're not as "loud".
If a farmer was to walk up to me and ask me "how can I improve the welfare of my animals in my factory farm?" then I'd do my best to make meaningful improvements, even though I think factory farming in general is unethical.
Now, back to Free Software: in broad lines I agree with Stallman, but just find his approach unhelpful, and I don't think that can just be hand-waved away with "but [he thinks] it's unethical".
That means in this case it doesn't make sense to complain and argue about his answer to the developer, as his answer makes perfect sense given his premises. If you want to disagree with his advice, you have to disagree with his moral position on proprietary software and argue about that.
Expecting Stallman to help someone make money with proprietary software is like expecting a vegan advocate to help someone kill cows more humanely.
Note that I'm not expressing an agreement or disagreement with Stallman's worldview, only that his answer is exactly what follows from his worldview, and you should argue about that and not about the answer.