[dlitz]

> Users do not mess with their car's firmware.

This canard is completely irrelevant. Free software creates a free market for the maintenance, distribution, support, and modification of software. Users of free software might not make the modifications themselves, but they can hire anyone they want to do perform the modifications. (And, with a popular project, they often won't have to, because someone else has already done so. See, for example, git.)

[alavrik]

You are essentially talking about various effects associated with choice of the GNU GPL license. I agree with you on that. It is a useful tool.

My point was that the social movement for software freedom is not going anywhere. These are two different things.

According to Stallman, using GPL helps to achieve "software freedom". But many people use it as a tool for achieving their own (project, community, commercial, etc) goals and don't care about Stallman's social movement. See Linus Torvalds for example.