There was a time when some of the things he talks about mattered (1980s), and that time has long gone.
The general public don't buy "computers" to tinker with any more. They buy them just like they buy a toaster. As an appliance to use. The software or hardware it runs is irrelevant. All that matters is the user experience, and if it fulfils the purpose - does it make good toast.
I find it ironic how vocal the anti-RMS contingent is being in the same week that Microsoft is locking Firefox out of one of their Windows 8 lines, while we live in a world where Apple rigidly controls what you do with everything not-Mac and continue making strides towards locking down the Macs as well, where consumer electronics like eBook readers are rapidly displacing computers, and where Google's dedication to openness seems to come and go and is held hostage by hostile phone carriers and indifferent-at-best hardware manufacturers. Let us not forget Microsoft's ongoing efforts to ensure BIOSes can only boot approved (read: Microsoft) OSes. I can barely even remember all the ways in which almost every tech company under the sun right now is trying to lock us in a box.
The Open Web Honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end and our ability to ignore his ideas is also rapidly coming to end. His ideas are regaining their importance fast, because the victories circa 2000 that allowed us to pretend he was crazy because our world was comfortable are being walked back. The classic Right to Read [1] is no longer a far-out vision but very nearly a matter of some switches being flipped in existing software and hardware. I see a developing consensus group on HN that we can ignore RMS as a loon, but now's a terrible time for that to take root. We're going to get stomped in the next several years if that happens. The fight for the openness of the next hardware generation has started and we're barely showing up.
The sky is not falling. In fact, if you look at the situation now, with real browser choice, IE declining market share, and with Android, then the situation is better than it has ever been. Most games consoles have opportunities to write software for them. Something you could only dream about in the 90s.
The market decides these things extremely well. We don't need people shouting and taking extremist positions.
The only thing that matters is "Does this device solve a problem I have, and satisfy my needs?". If the answer to that is yes, then I don't care how open/closed/walled garden it is.
Yes. We have real browser choice on our conventional computers and Android. Less on iPhone, none on Windows 8 for ARM. Game consoles are walled gardens and I'm not sure what you mean by "most" because I'm pretty sure it's only the XBox 360 that is open to all, and that a hugely restricted sandbox as well.
So, your bright spots are a fading category under active attack (web browser choice), a dubious walled garden (XBox 360) from the same company working to kill our browser choice, and a phone platform which as I've said goes back and forth between open and not depending on the who, what, and when, with basically a single project standing between us and the whole platform being effectively closed (CyanogenMod). (I'm assuming you're not claiming the PS3 as open after the openness was retroactively removed by Sony. There is nothing stopping Microsoft from doing that either.)
This isn't extremism to be ringing the bell, our insertion into the trunk is nearly a fait accompli, and again, we're barely showing up to the fight.
> There was a time when some of the things he talks about mattered (1980s), and that time has long gone.
On the contrary. RMS's extreme views on software freedom are more relevant than ever before.
In the 2000's we have seen computers turn from general purpose programmable machines into walled gardens where you need a permission from the manufacturer to write and sell programs that run on them. That's pretty much the opposite of free software.
Software. Hardware. The difference is not relevant.
I also can't easily modify my toaster to fry sausages, because of the toaster company not releasing the design schematics and moulds. It's not free hardware!
The toaster lets you open it, the toaster lets you modify it, it has standard screws and doesn't explicitly lock you out. It gives you no help in modifying it, but you are permitted to do so, and there are no mechanisms in place to stop you from doing it. If someone were to make a tool that lets you modify the toaster, that would not be illegal, and I highly doubt the toaster company would take issue with it.
You seem to have chosen your example to prove your point and also misunderstood the meaning of "monopoly business models."
I refer to business models that seek out monopoly status through techniques such as vendor lock in. Not just businesses that find themselves in a position of monopoly.
Monopolies never work. Check out 'The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires' by Tim Wu http://amzn.to/JGc0zv
History will only repeat itself, but with greater and more severe repercussions for our apathy and ignorance.
The big problem with software embedded in hardware is accountability. Today, if your car crash, it could be human error, or a software error. Yet, accountability has not moved with the times, and only the human error is looked at. Fix accountability for the software and I for one will treat it as the same as the hardware.
