From the article: "I’m not RMS, I love open-source for very pragmatic reasons. One of the biggest is that I hate hitting black boxes when I’m debugging!"
RMS started the free software movement because he wasn't able to adapt a black box printer.
Has it? I think it's very pragmatic to want control over your hardware and the ability to repair problems or add functionality as desired. If you consider it from what is best for society as well, it's very restrictive to have hardware where the software cannot be modified.
RMS started the free software movement because he wasn't able to adapt a black box printer.