I'm a little surprised and disappointed by this answer. It seems like all four of Stallman's four essential freedoms of free software apply to hardware: to use

I'm a little surprised and disappointed by this answer. It seems like all four of Stallman's four essential freedoms of free software apply to hardware: to use as you wish, to study and modify, to distribute, and to distribute modifications [0]. Only the freedom to distribute is mitigated by the cost of copying hardware. The others all seem like an active battleground for end-user freedoms, and the freedom to distribute will be more important as both design tools and fabrication technologies become cheaper. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html