You are
entirely free to use the narrow FOSS interpreted distribution. And other people are just as free to use the ones that include the blobs they need to get their hardware to work where there is no alternative available. And hopefully over time all of those blobs will go the way of the Dodo, but in the meantime Debian keeps mind and marketshare, which unlike absolutist stances are just as important to the long term survival of the distribution as is the core philosophy.
Because you wouldn't be pushing those users to an alternative linux distro, you'd be pushing them to Apple and Windows and that's far more damaging to FOSS than to include some firmware blobs. The issue was debated at considerable length, I've followed the debate (because I use Debian and Debian derived distros on all of my machines, including laptops, servers and desktops) and I'm happy to see this outcome because it shows a certain level of maturity. The world isn't easily defined in terms of black and white. Debian is doing a great job and this minor concession is only going to strengthen its position as the FOSS distro of choice because more people will end up being able to use it successfully.
Note that far more people care about whether or not a distro works on their machine than whatever narrow reading of 'The Word' causes it to malfunction. Builders are few, consumers are many and I'd much rather see Debian succeed in the long term than die on the hill of FOSS purism.
