it's accurate. the FSF is an advocacy, fundraising and organizing organization. it's the primary sponsor of the GNU project, that does primarily software development and organizing towards software development. I'm not saying it had to be like that, but that's the way it is. under this arrangement, it wouldn't be the FSF doing the reverse engineering, it would be GNU doing it, whether through volunteers or not.

but reverse engineering is too often wasted effort: even if you succeed, by the time you're done, odds are that the hardware will already be obsolete. it's good to get more hardware that can be used in freedom, but it's far more effective to do that by convincing hardware developers and software users that it's in their own interest for the software to be free than racing after a fake rabbit that would ensure we're always years behind

CC: @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com @menherahair@eientei.org @phnt@fluffytail.org @Cyrillic@lab.nyanide.com @mischievoustomato@tsundere.love @yomiel@new.asbestos.cafe