This article doesn't add anything to the discussion. Worse, it pointedly takes a stance against RMS's article and calls it FUD, but doesn't say anything to address any of the points RMS made.
That's coming from a developer that lost it's business because RMS told him on the show he hosted (Linux Action Show) that he was imoral because he was developing proprietary software, so he decided to GPL his applications and ask for donations. Now he's working for a development company because he couldn't make a living from donations.
My opinion about RMS is very simple. He did a incredible job by creating the GPL license and funding the GNU project, but in the modern world he needs to get out of his cavern and at least try the things he rant about, after he tried and realized that it really isn't good he can say anything about it.
I can't hear a person that wants anarchism for the open source community and reads sites by wget'ing them. After he tries things for himself instead of just hearing about them I'll start to hear him again.
From what I've seen, his reasons for disliking things shouldn't be affected by whether he's tried them or not. He's not criticizing Ubuntu for having a bad UI, or insufficient features; he's criticizing it for (what he sees as) spying on its users. What relevant information would he gain from trying it? He already knows that it sends all of the user's searches to a server, and he already has reasons why he believes that's an unacceptable thing to do.
The problem with his article isn't that he tried Ubuntu the problem is the language that he used. He sounded like he wanted internet riots that would boycott Canonical.
Canonical made extremely great things for the open source community and because of one single thing he makes it sound like Canonical was a tumor inside the community that should be exterminated.
The "spying" feature is only for Unity, since Mint doesn't use Unity then it doesn't have it. Also they aren't "spying" on you more than 10% of what Google is doing right now.
tl;dr of counter-argument from Jono "not Canonical" Bacon:
We're making a product here and it's not perfect yet. Your privacy is important to us. Unfortunately, RMS and I have a disagreement at what privacy means. We feel that convenience is privacy. At least we're not Facebook.
I feel that RMS trying to mobilize the Linux community fits the definition of FUD. Respectfully, RMS is a fuddy-duddy. Freedom also means allowing corporations to have freedom too, don't you know. Just look at Apple, aren't you jelly? We need to do this to make free software look like Apple stuff.
Should probably just be flagged as blogspam.