Over a year ago, I actually read the entire document, and he explains why all of that material is there. I will just say that he travels a great deal speaking about Open Source, for little, and often no, money. All of these details are there because they have come up in his travels, some of them frequently. You’ll find that people who travel a lot for business, and even for personal reasons, all have lists like this, written or just mental. When you’re on the road, little things matter a lot because your comfort and schedule is so dependent on them. I don’t think he’s weird at all, but the guy that calls him a weirdo on fireandknowledge.org comes off as a judgmental jerk.
If this were about Steve Jobs, these guidelines would be respected - they would show his attention to detail, the importance he placed on clarity, etc, etc. As soon as they're about Stallman - it's because he's weird, a social outcast or whatever other insult people choose to throw at him.<p>People like Stallman are a good representation of the "misfits" spoken about in Apple's iconic advert, though try telling that to the RoR 'hacker' who has declared themself a misfit/troublemaker/round peg in a square hole because he decided to use Coffeescript rather than Javascript in his latest GTD app.
mrs is weird, water is wet, politicians lie. News at 11!<p>Guess what: hackers <i>are</i> weird, and they <i>like</i> to tweak their environment to perfection.