I've been wondering about this myself. My guess is that the utility argument of open source has culturally occluded the freedom arguments of free software. There's a reason we call it open source hardware and not free hardware.
In the DIY electronics community, when someone suggests building an open/free professional tool (e.g. oscillscope, power supply, etc.), everyone responds "you're crazy, it would be too expensive, you'll never beat the cheap Chinese supplies (like Rigol) on price". Right next door, you'll see people who go to insane lengths to study and after-market hack the very same hardware. Hacks that would be both massively easier and more accessible if the hardware was open. (I'm thinking in particular of a thread on EEVBlog where a guy completely desoldered and resoldered (!) his Rigol oscilloscope to reverse engineer the front end.) I think the Novena is an awesome counter-example to this argument and I hope more people take on projects like this. (I would if I had the skillz.)
In the DIY electronics community, when someone suggests building an open/free professional tool (e.g. oscillscope, power supply, etc.), everyone responds "you're crazy, it would be too expensive, you'll never beat the cheap Chinese supplies (like Rigol) on price". Right next door, you'll see people who go to insane lengths to study and after-market hack the very same hardware. Hacks that would be both massively easier and more accessible if the hardware was open. (I'm thinking in particular of a thread on EEVBlog where a guy completely desoldered and resoldered (!) his Rigol oscilloscope to reverse engineer the front end.) I think the Novena is an awesome counter-example to this argument and I hope more people take on projects like this. (I would if I had the skillz.)