This is only a half the story. The Purism still runs on proprietary firmware. The discrete components in question are an actual full auxiliary CPU core, its only purpose being to load the hard-coded blob to properly boot the primary SoC. This was done because under FSF's definition, if the end user cannot update the firmware blob, then the firmware is considered one with the hardware, and the hardware as a whole is "free enough".
So they took away the user's ability to update the firmware, fused it in a ROM with every possible bug and inefficiency frozen in place for the rest of eternity, wasted silicon and engineering time to do so, only to grant themselves an arbitrary, honorary badge.
This isn't even radicalism anymore, this is hypocrisy. As a power-user who values freedom, and a long-time Free Software sympathiser, I am personally offended, and won't give my money to either party until they reverse course on their user-hostility.
That's simply not true. Users can upgrade those firmwares if they want (and absolutely no weird tricks like disassembling or soldering are necessary for that). PureOS doesn't distribute any non-free updates, but if you want, you absolutely can reflash these blobs.
> The RYF has a “secondary processor” exclusion that can be granted on a case by case basis. We will leverage this exclusion to load and train the DDR PHY on the i.MX 8. We will use a secondary processor to keep binary blobs out of u-boot and the kernel.
Librem 5 does not lock the firmwares in any kind of ROM. Nothing is taken away from the user.