The other point they ignore that if some part is programmable but currently requires proprietary firmware, it's possible (and this has happened) that people reverse-engineer it and produce free software that runs on it. BUt if you bought the FSF-blessed version of that device you're then stuck with the proprietary version of that program forever, and worse, you can't get any updates for that program. You can't get a security fix, and you can't replace it with the free program.
