This if obviously true, but I don't think this means we shouldn't demand openness in hardware, though.
Openness for me is first and foremost ideological, not practical, and certainly not just about the results. It's really about power, and the relationship between those who make the technology and those who are dependent on the technology.
Being dependent on proprietary technology whose continued existence is completely tied to the financial well-being of a single corporate entity is not a very good situation to be in for anybody, since it means that you are by proxy dependent on that entity and its success. Openness does not reduce dependency on technology, but it does reduce dependency on specific technology providers, and ultimately I think that's in my best interest.
Openness for me is first and foremost ideological, not practical
For the case where actually repairing or maintaining hardware is your job, open design and schematics is essential--especially if the original manufacturer is out of business. You'll see this in hospitals, military ships, machine shops, etc.
> Openness for me is first and foremost ideological, not practical, and certainly not just about the results.
The problem is openness took off in software because it's very practical for some kind of developments, and IMHO, this tremendous success wrongly suggests that it could be applied elsewhere. I'll back that statement by pointing out that very little open software had organic success among consumers (products like firefox and VLC), other are either backed by big tech companies (android, Java), many times with the open source software having a closed development process.
Indeed, and this is why there's something to the argument that talking about software freedom, and in this case hardware freedom, is more important than talking about "Open Source."
Openness for me is first and foremost ideological, not practical, and certainly not just about the results. It's really about power, and the relationship between those who make the technology and those who are dependent on the technology.
Being dependent on proprietary technology whose continued existence is completely tied to the financial well-being of a single corporate entity is not a very good situation to be in for anybody, since it means that you are by proxy dependent on that entity and its success. Openness does not reduce dependency on technology, but it does reduce dependency on specific technology providers, and ultimately I think that's in my best interest.