By this I meant putting philosophy in front of practicality. 99% (or some other arbitrary percentage) of users want just that... to use software X to do Y. For them, software is a tool, not an end in it self. People care as much about the source code as they do about the plans to their cars engine... they just want it to work without giving them any problems.
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I think in many cases people just don't know that they care. They don't make the connection to more everyday objects like cars.
Cars are a good example. Lots of people can do basic maintenance on their car. They get frustrated when they have to go to a mechanic to find out what the "check engine" light is complaining about this time. They buy the Chilton's or Haynes' car repair manuals. On the more extreme end they do a complete engine rebuild, or even assemble a kit car from publicly available reference designs.
Cars are getting more complex and computerized though. I hear complaints about how much harder they are becoming to service. And the example given in the interview of the proprietary software in engine management chips is real. Racers will completely replace the ECU controlling fuel injection and engine timing with one which is programmable.
My parents' generation takes for granted that they can do these things with their cars. But with my generation we changed from the grease monkeys to the hackers, and the freedom to tinker has to come with us. For most people a car is just a tool to get from point A to point B. But we are all poorer when the hobbyists and amateurs don't have the freedom to tinker with, explore, and hack their own computers and cars.
Innovation and practicality are not the same things . Placing innovation before freedom is just as much a philosophical decision as the reverse.
Innovation is great for delivering new and better products, but it doesn't help much for allowing you to fix problems in the code you're using, avoid vendor lockin,or any of the other problems that free software can help solve.
I agree that it is important to keep practicality in mind, but I think it is also important to keep in mind that pretty much any philosophy you choose will have different tradeoffs involved.