Tell a bridge engineer that he has no absolutely control over the hardware he has to work with and that it may have a billion variations, and see if he signs his name to it.
You know, that's what modern operating systems with hardware abstraction layers and APIs, and high-level development toolkits are for. I don't think I care what hardware or even OS my stinky, SQL-injection-prone PHP code is running on. Sheesh.
I'm not quite sure what value to assign to an oppressive government's software either.
Does the computer allow one to erase said software and install a clean distribution? If so, I see no fundamental problem. True, I don't expect many peasants to do that, if not because of the necessary technical skills, then because of their having better things to do such as caring for their crops. On the other hand, does its BIOS include a hidden hypervisor/backdoor? Is monitoring software included, that once erased, ceases to report the user's activities to the government, prompting repressive action? If not, again, I see no fundamental problem, but I see how this can help people manage their business better and also promote free software.
If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.