Everything has software. If he follows his ideology that everything he uses be open source then he can't do anything except live off completely off grid without anything that has a semi conductor in it.
No electric meter at his house, no internet (even if his router is running open source, the ISP he's connected to certainly isn't), no transportation of any kind, no entertainment of any kind, no shopping of any kind (inventory management, cash registers, logistics). The equipment used to manufacture all the pieces of his precious decade old laptop was running proprietary software (not to mention all the small firmwares like wifi and Ethernet controllers).
You cannot escape it.
So, we should be pragmatic about it. We should push for it, but realize that it's impossible to live in society without interacting with closed source software.
Richard Stallman's positions are actually more pragmatic than that. Here is how he describes them:
> I firmly refuse to install non-free software or tolerate its installed presence on my computer or on computers set up for me.
> However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this. Of course, I explain to the local people why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because annoying them is not the way to convince them.
> Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. (I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue, which would arise just the same even if they did use free software. My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me.)
> That's my policy about using a machine once in a while. If I were to use it for an hour every day, that would no longer be "once in a while" — it would be regular use. At that point, I would start to feel the heavy hand of any nonfree software in that computer, and feel the duty to arrange to use a liberated computer instead.
> As for microwave ovens and other appliances, if updating software is not a normal part of use of the device, then it is not a computer. In that case, I think the user need not take cognizance of whether the device contains a processor and software, or is built some other way. However, if it has an "update firmware" button, that means installing different software is a normal part of use, so it is a computer.
This isn't children sewing soccer balls with their teeth type of principles. This is a machine controlled by code the end user doesn't get access to building another thing the user actually buys that has no closed code in it. Who cares how the thing was built using whatever software to control the things to build the product? That software affects the end user in no way other than to produce the thing. That's like in an entirely different universe than running code on your computing device where you should be able to decide who/what/when/where type of questions. Telling a manufacturing company to do something regarding their software in their processes is out of this world insane. It is their software after all, so your freedom to run stuff your way should also reciprocate to them doing what they will with theirs.
No electric meter at his house, no internet (even if his router is running open source, the ISP he's connected to certainly isn't), no transportation of any kind, no entertainment of any kind, no shopping of any kind (inventory management, cash registers, logistics). The equipment used to manufacture all the pieces of his precious decade old laptop was running proprietary software (not to mention all the small firmwares like wifi and Ethernet controllers).
You cannot escape it.
So, we should be pragmatic about it. We should push for it, but realize that it's impossible to live in society without interacting with closed source software.