Something tells me you might have a difficult time convincing say Qualcomm with just that reasoning.
You could conceivably reverse-engineer the hardware if you got the support of places like MIT, and then it's fair game from there.
But most of the time Quallcomm, Broadcom and the others have an army of lawyers and an absurd amount of money to burn to ensure that your project, life and general existence is ruined, just to protect their bottom line.
Asking might come with a large fine if 911 service is interrupted.
A fine might actually be lower cost than losing freedom to binary blobs, so there's that.