Even the FSF is willing to compromise on that, as long as the locked software is hardware-locked and totally unchangeable by anything and anyone (including thin

Even the FSF is willing to compromise on that, as long as the locked software is hardware-locked and totally unchangeable by anything and anyone (including things like over-the-air updates), so it can be considered part of the hardware, and as long as it does not have access to main memory or can otherwise interfere with the free-software part of the system.