Hello Georg,
While I do not deny most of your other statements, I'd like to add a comment to this one.
Georg Jakob writes:
I know that this sounds like open source speak, but I think that's exactly why we *need* the FSF - to talk about freedom, to create awareness. If you talk about freedom in a sales presentation, you'll be laughed out of business quicker than you can say "GNU".
I do not think so. Freedom per se is not a bad thing even in bussines, else 'they' wouldn't insist on free trade so much. The counterside of the specific freedom you/we/the-FSF is talking about is dependency, mainly from a vendor. In business 'dependency' translates into 'risk': The risk to loose undefined amounts money very quickly to a partner or not-partner-any-more. Actually I believe that this is a language 'they' understand at sales presentations and I've seen it working now and then. One can even turn this into some sort of advertisment: "Look, we give you source and all, you might change your vendor/developer/what-ever, if you ain't satisfied with us some time in the future. Yes, I'm so convinced, we're the best, we won't take you that freedom".
But the FSF (*not* the OSI) gives us the possibility to change that. Beware the dark side...
I will try. :-)
Regards -- Markus