This, frankly ridiculous situation perfectly illustrates the significance of free software ideology as opposed to open source and other ideologies. Over the years, the concept has been attacked, ridiculed, deemphasized and dismissed through sustained vilification campaigns in the name of being too political, too ideological, too purist and too extreme. I have witnessed even personal attacks made against its proponents.Open source philosophy emphasizes the sharing and openness of code source so that the collaboration improves its availability and quality. For free software on the other hand, openness is only a means to an end. In fact, you're not even required to distribute the source. You need to supply it only to the users of your software, and only if they request it. Free software instead focuses on the concept of computing freedom. The idea that the computing devices you own MUST do only what you want, and anything you want (within the limits of technological possibilities).
In practice, free software ideology and open source ideology achieve nearly identical results. Most open source software are free software. Most OSS licenses qualify as free software license too. But free software philosophy raises an important question that OSS philosophy doesn't. Does the software do what you want? Does it work in your interests as a device owner? Over time, we saw the emergence of software that are open, but harms your interests in multiple ways. Examples include AOSP, Chromium, VSCode, etc. And yet, we falsely call them FOSS.
And now when governments and corporations implement measures and laws that take away our freedom to use the devices we paid for and supposedly own in ways we want, the OSS philosophy rarely questions their sanctity. Sure, there is some opposition from the OSS community to these measures, but they are mostly based on practical issues like the inability to enforce the restrictions or to face its consequences.
However, these restrictions are antithetical to the free software philosophy in a more fundamental, ideological and political way. Had it been the dominant philosophy among the two, there would have been a bigger push back in the name of violation of our rights and freedoms. This is why our stances, ideologies and politics with respect to technology matters.
The loss of emphasis on free software philosophy has blunted our opposition a bit. Free software proponents were screaming about such eventualities from the beginning. But they were dismissed as eccentric. And that brings us to the sustained vilification campaigns I talked about earlier. It was clear from the beginning that these campaigns were coordinated by moneyed interests. They don't want us to have strong opinions or political beliefs about what we do, lest we revolt when they exploit us for resources or force us to do their bidding. Always be wary of people who argue against the interests of the common. Who knows what lurks under the sheep skin?