It’s preposterous to state that it’s not immoral to be robbed, raped, or enslaved. What is the purpose of this backwards logic? Obviously the labels “evil” and “immoral” ONLY apply to the perpetrator, not the victim.

Once again, there is no crime here because normal people do not believe a crime was committed, or believe any wrong was done. People with a different set of religious, political, or philosophical beliefs may feel differently.

They have a firm belief that using proprietary software is wrong/evil/immoral.

It is not immoral or evil to use non free software, any more than it is immoral to be robbed, raped or enslaved. The crime is the attack against freedom which non free software owners must make for their business model to survive.

The “religious” behavior comes not from the GNU project itself, but from some of it’s user, like Roy and those who chat in the IRC channel. They have a firm belief that using proprietary software is wrong/evil/immoral. Not only that, but they insist that everyone else yield to their same beliefs. Similar to Christianity, followers go about telling others they are in danger, or in this case their freedom is in danger. Fear is used to motivate someone to support an idea. Do you value your freedom? Do you want to burn forever in eternal damnation? Of course you don’t, then follow us.

I don’t believe Jesus was the son of God, but I know I won’t burn forever in a lake of fire, even though Christians have warned me. I don’t believe their fear.

I enjoy purchasing and using proprietary software, but I know my freedom is not in any danger, even though FOSS zealots have warned me. I don’t believe their fear.

If you can reject fear, you can see things for how they really are. There is no freedom in fear.

Remember that Mono proponents call Boycott Novell “software Taliban”.

Religion is sometimes not strong enough a slur, so they mix it with some racial aspects and “terrorism”.

Failed attempt at sarcasm aside, I don’t know if there’s anything clever about it, it’s been used (often playfully) since the dawn of the internet to describe opponents who do not share a frame of reference over an argument (and since not all frame of references are equal, it is often justified). Thus they see their opponents as `irrational’, like all religion must be.

If anything it’s use is pretty un-clever, and simply used as a catch-all since there is no substance to the argument – like the global warming `sceptics’ who call the science `religion’ in a childish mis-understanding of language and how science works. And they haven’t come up with this idea on their own, it’s a deliberate tactic utilised by energy interests to undermine the politics of dealing with the science.

Calling the support of freedoms for individuals a ‘religion’ seems pretty hard to argue for in any rational and reasonable debate. Having strong convictions likewise does not a religion make of itself either. Without any real argument with which to counter the point, lets just call them a religion and make them look silly eh?

Also remember, ‘jihad’ came directly from internal Microsoft emails.