When it comes to non-free firmware I think there's two reasonable positions - treat it like non-free code running on a remote system (suboptimal, outside the scope of current free software priorities) or treat it like software running on the primary CPU (all code on the local system should be free software, no matter where it's running). I think the FSF's position is unreasonable: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/70895.html
@mjg59
> users would benefit from most (if not all) firmware being free software
yes
> So I think this is less of a philosophical discussion
no, that does not follow
The stance of FSF is that developing proprietary software is immoral. Therefore, all software is *required* to be free
Just because something is beneficial to users does not mean it's morally required
Therefore, I think there's still a philosophical discussion here: where is the line between the vendors' rights and the users'
@mjg59
Now, as to why FSF may've thought ROMs are ok:
The purpose of Free Software is to remove a power imbalance between vendor and user.
If the vendor can change the software, but the user can't, that gives the vendor coercive power over the user.
So one might conclude that if firmware is in ROM, then vendor is as powerless to change it as the user, so there is no power imbalance.
1/
@wolf480pl The vendor no longer has the power to change it, but they still have the power to control how the hardware behaves in the first place and this may not be to the user's benefit. Proprietary software that the vendor never updates is just as harmful as proprietary software that the vendor ships optional updates for.