Savonarola, St. Francis - or St. IGNUcius?

There's a well-written commentary on C|Net that makes what looks like a neat historical parallel between Savonarola and Richard Stallman; in particular, it wants us to consider the GPL 3 as some modern-day equivalent of a Bonfire of the Vanities, in which precious objects were consigned to the flames at the behest of the dangerous and deranged Savonarola.

It's a clever comparison, but it suffers from a problem common to all clever comparisons: they are just metaphors, not cast-iron mathematical isomorphisms.

For example, I could just as easily set up a parallel between Stallman and St. Francis of Assisi: both renounced worldy goods, both devoted themselves to the poor, both clashed with the authorities on numerous occasions, and both produced several iterations of their basic tenets. And St. Francis never destroyed, as Savonarola did: rather, he is remembered for restoring ruined churches - just as Stallman has restored the ruined churches of software.

In fact, Stallman is neither Savonarola nor St. Francis, but his own, very special kind of holy man: St. IGNUcius of the Church of Emacs.