> what would we lose?

Who is "we"? Going back to the origin of Free Software to proprietary printer drivers causing hardware to be unfixable by its users and otherwise become ewaste. The loss is users are nearly beholden to the manufacturer to customize or maintain their own devices. Android phones, most ereaders, can have long lives when obsolete, but this is only because Linux is Free Software; with proprietary kernels they are entirely ewaste instead of a small fraction having continuing life. OTOH most do become ewaste. OAH this Free Software allows competitors to start from almost the same place and prevent total monopolies, hence why Apple makes most of the profit and I can buy a $150 phone instead of what appears to be $799 minimum from Apple.

But, I think 20 year-old software is probably mostly safe from the above effects and I'm not sure GP was arguing otherwise, just against total absence of copyright.