I cannot agree with you. A user, on a given day, interacts with countless interfaces, not all of those interfaces have to do with technology.
If you give everyone 100% control over every interface - this will drive the world crazy. How much control do you have on your house lock - do you take it apart everyday? How much control do you have on temperature regulation in your fridge, except for temperature dial?
People in computing must realize that a computer is just another interface for a user. For a programmer, I agree with you. But if I made cupcakes for a living, I'd want control over my oven, not my computer. As a programmer though, I trust that my oven company did their job and eat food out of it everyday.
> How much control do you have on your house lock - do you take it apart everyday?
No, but I can hire any locksmith of my choosing to look at it.
The point isn't that end-users are in control of it, but that end-users can hire experts to adjust it if needed. Giving a manufacturer complete aftermarket control of their product is entirely different.
That's not really a valid analogy. Why? Well, the user of an open source product gets the same sort of interface as the user of a proprietary product. It can be a pretty GUI that only presents the things you care about.
The difference comes when you want to customize its behavior--in the open source version, you could five until the code yourself or, more likely, hire somebody to look into it for you. Similarly, if you were very worried about security, you could run an independent audit of the code yourself. Neither of these options exists for a proprietary product.
Basically, you're arguing against a straw man. Nobody is suggesting giving the user more options in the interface. Rather, the suggestion is to give the user access to the source code in case they want something modified.
The "fundamental control" in question is about who gets to see and use the source code, not about what the average user can do from a GUI.
> The difference comes when you want to customize its behavior
What does that have to do with whether the unmodified one must means user has no security?
All you said can mean you can be more sure that open source code is secure. But it does in no way proof that "proprietary security software mean no security at all (EDIT: better be 'proprietary security software mean user has no security')".
That was addressed in the parent poster's very next sentence:
Similarly, if you were very worried about security, you could run an independent audit of the code yourself. Neither of these options exists for a proprietary product.
> How much control do you have on your house lock - do you take it apart everyday
I actually have taken apart the locking mechanism once to repair it. It got stuck, the door wouldn't open, so I fixed it. I didn't take out the barrel or dig too deep in, but I didn't need to. If I hadn't been technically competent to do that, I would have been able to hire someone else to do it for me.
The software mentioned in the article already gives you that level of control, with use of exceptions. But this is just as much control as my fridge gives me with the temperature control dial.
What FSF is debating is "fundamental" and full control of inner workings of the software, which is what I find a bit narrow.
If you give everyone 100% control over every interface - this will drive the world crazy. How much control do you have on your house lock - do you take it apart everyday? How much control do you have on temperature regulation in your fridge, except for temperature dial?
People in computing must realize that a computer is just another interface for a user. For a programmer, I agree with you. But if I made cupcakes for a living, I'd want control over my oven, not my computer. As a programmer though, I trust that my oven company did their job and eat food out of it everyday.