can Ripple technology work without the use of the "built in currency"?
No, because XRP is needed to facilitate transfers.
Having a native currency is why Ripple is succeeding where Open Transactions and the original Ripple failed.
Everything is so much clearer when they say something so fucking stupid,
so ripple... Which itself is not open source yet. ?. Has succeeded! Where open transactions a clearly superior system still under active development and testing has failed already?