@digdeeper >But why should those "freedoms" be taken as axioms if they don't work in practice to bring anything positive?
Please could you enlighten me how a few bad apples like firefox and chromium outweigh the positive result of GNU and a huge amount of other free software?

>if a software has millions of lines of code, it is effectively unmodifiable. So how is it different than a closed source one?
If a program is free software, you can copy individual files, or even just a few lines or data structures etc and use them in separate programs under the free software license.
Even then, good software can have millions of lines of code and still be modifiable.

Please don't support proprietary software by writing about the open/closed state, as open and closed are just two separate states, and saying such implies that either is acceptable.

When it comes to proprietary software, you typically don't have the source, or even if you do, you don't have permission to use that source - so you can't do the above.

>Or if a corporation comes in and just takes over, and the forks never gain traction because they lack the marketing budget?
Simply don't use the software, or use one of the working forks then?
Software doesn't need to be popular for you to use it.
Just because a company has a large marketing budget doesn't mean you have to use their spyware (unless of course such is imposed onto you, but that has not much to do with marketing).

>Or if the developers abuse the users with privacy violations?
Don't use the software - it's that simple.

>Why is theory being considered over what actually happens?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "what actually happens" - there are a number of bad apples, but most of the apples are great.

@TerminalAutism >I don't have to explain to someone why Firefox is not free software for the billionth time
It's available under free software licenses, so it's free software, but just because it's free software doesn't mean it's good or not spyware.
Please don't confuse people by saying things aren't free software, when they are.

>how the FSF's four freedoms are not a complete list of all freedoms you can have in software.
The FSF has never claimed that the 4 freedoms is a complete list of everything you need for software, just how the 4 things need to be met for such to be free software.

>If privacy doesn't matter in free software, then why is 90% of what Richard Stallman talks about in his speeches about privacy? Why did he say that he would not carry a phone EVEN IF it was fully free, because it would still track him?
If you want privacy, the first thing you need is the software to be free, but of course that's only the first thing.
I've listened to a few rms speeches and he doesn't talk about privacy 90% of the time - it's a far smaller percentage, but the fact is, you cannot have privacy with proprietary software, so using free software instead is the first step to privacy.