Comment by basilikum

RMS is explicitly about FOSS and not just open source (in the sense of source available).

> You don't need the original source code if you have good decompilers, and now LLMs to assist.

Yes, you do. Decompiling and modifying a binary can be illegal itself under the DMCA in certain circumstances. But even if it is not, distributing the decompiled source is against copyright.

> Java utilities that were public-domain but not open-source

AFAIK Java is specifically easy to decompile when it is not further obfuscated. That is not true for many other languages. And while you can technically reverse engineer any language it does make modifying software and even finding out what it does fundamentally more difficult.

> far more liberating process than getting the source code, figuring out how to build it in its entirety, and possibly changing more than only the piece you wanted to.

It's certainly more liberating because there are more restrictions you have to liberate from in the first place. RMS argues that these restrictions should not exist in the first place. As for building being difficult, no free license requires the author to use a good and easy build procedure, but the GPL requires them to provide you all the tools required to build the software unless they are already readily available: "The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities."