He was saying that it was silly ("ridiculous") of me to expect to have the freedoms I expect from software. I just applied those freedoms to everyday physical objects and retorted that it must also be silly to expect similar freedoms with the physical objects. I don't see where the incongruity is.
Of course you don't, because you didn't fully read or understand my rebuttal.
It sounds to me like you're talking about local laws. That makes absolutely no sense as a comparison.
and it is illegal to do so even if you find out how to;
You can't say that me talking about "laws" in one case makes no sense and then proceed to make your own argument about something being illegal. It is the exact same point, you just twisted it to say you think that it is unfair. My original statement stands entirely as it did:
You have a house which for whatever reason contains restrictions to what you can or cannot do to that house. This house is otherwise perfect, it is a good location, cheap, has everything you want, but you are not allowed to modify certain things without getting complete approval from the housing committee. It is a house you would own, but because of the community you are in you must abide by certain terms with respect to what kind of work can be done on the house or the yard. They are not laws, they are agreements within the community that you'd be moving into. It is the only house currently available that meets all your criteria, except this one. You rejecting software which you would otherwise have accepted if not for the license it is under is very similar to rejecting this house because of the requirement of going through the committee should you want to change some things. Your stance is actually even more silly than the analogy because if you buy a house and then find something wrong with it that you can't change you are stuck with a house that no longer meets your criteria; if you start using software which you cannot change and find a problem with it you can then choose to simply stop using the software then and lose nothing, you are free to abandon the "non-free" software the instant it starts causing problems and try to find something else that fits you.
You liked playing BattleJewels. You claim that the only reason you stopped was because the source is not available, as if Skeezix keeping his source code safe was necessarily hampering your enjoyment of the end product. You are willingly depriving yourself of something you enjoyed because it doesn't suit your philosophy 100%, not because there was actually a problem that needed to be fixed, not because you were coming to depend on it and would be in a bad position if it did ever break, simply for ideological purposes and a sense of righteousness. That, to me, is a very silly reason to reject something. I can see the philosophy being applied to software with proprietary formats, or hardware with proprietary drivers, or perhaps games which you pay for and can honestly foresee yourself playing many years from now, but to reject something fun which costs nothing and loses nothing if it stops working? I cannot comprehend this method of thinking at all.
If you must use your furniture analogy, then yes, if someone gives me a chair, a very comfortable chair which suits all my needs, absolutely free of charge, with the stipulation that I not attempt to make any repairs or modifications to it ever, that I cannot sell or give it away, you had better believe I will accept that chair regardless of these requirements, because hey, free chair. I will not feel any sense of entitlement to the right to modify the chair because not doing so was a stipulation of the transaction. If the chair breaks or I find it is no longer suitable I am quite capable of destroying it and getting a new one from wherever I wish. The new one may cost money, it may not be as good, but for the time that I had the free chair I enjoyed it. It seems unreasonable to me that you would refuse this amazingly comfortable chair entirely free of charge simply because you are not allowed to make any modifications to it.
