You know what I love about Android? Freedom to mod. I love that, if I’m unhappy with what I’ve been dealt by The Man, I can do something about it. I can’t even imagine using my Hero with the stock ROM+apps. Freedom, baby. That’s what it’s all about.
Motorola clearly think otherwise.
The new Droid X and Droid 2, like the Milestone (but not Droid) before it, will have a digitally signed bootloader, making it just that much more difficult to flash a custom ROM onto the device. A signed bootloader won’t affect the rooting of the handset, though, so at least it’s not all poop-in-your-cupcakes today.
As I said above, the original Droid didn’t suffer from a signed bootloader, and — as such — became a rather popular phone in the Android modding scene. So you can imagine that it caused quite a stir when the EU variant of the Droid, the Milestone, came locked-down. Android and Me share a tasty quote from the time of this controversy by Lori Fraleigh at Motorola, which nicely outlines Moto’s stance:
“Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years. This practice is driven by a number of different business factors. When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so. We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration.”
So, unless Moto really believe there is a business benefit to you guys screwing with your handsets (and potentially claiming a futzed ROM flash under warranty), you can pretty much guarantee the practice to continue.
Bummer.
[via Android and Me]
[image via Libertad Zero]
I really don’t get why Moto is doing this, they are shooting themselves in the knee as far as many early adopters are concerned.
What benefits do they have of using signed bootloaders anyway?
A big eff U to MOTO. Looks like I’m getting the Galaxy S instead.
Thanks for this info. I’m shopping for a new phone and I’m not buying Moto now.
You guys are funny. 99.9% of the consumers out there don’t even know about bootloaders or custom ROMs, let alone care enough about them to not buy a phone. You guys remind me of the people that complain about having to jailbreak the iPhone. How many people jailbreak their phones, iPhone or Android? VERY FEW.
The average consumer wants to surf the web, email, update Facebook/Twitter, watch Youtube, take pictures/videos, listen to music, and make phone calls. All of which the Droid X does nicely. They want customization, but not to the point where they have to worry about “breaking” their phone.
I will say this, even though the “hackers” are a very small minority, you guys don’t go down quietly!
Screw you Moto. I had 14 Droid Xs on order for the office and I’m canceling and going HTC Incredible…
So…
you want to build a phone {hardware} that takes advantage of an OS {software} that’s *OPEN SOURCE*; but you don’t want to give the *OPEN SOURCE* fans access to the OS?!!
Think this through…you aren’t giving the keys to the hardware away; you aren’t revealing any ‘trade secrets’.
And if your customer is smart enough to get and install a MOD’d ROM on said phone, then (s)he should be smart enough to be careful and not do stupid things…
One would think that it wouldn’t be hard to figure out if a customer returned a phone that had become a ‘brick’ because of modding?!
My bet is that Motorola will lose business to HTC and others because of this {extremely} public/visible anti-customer stance.
Hrm…looks like I’m going to be keeping my Moto Droid for a VERY long time.
Damn DRM. First video games, now cell phone roms.
As long as every idiot and his family keep buying locked-down, censored and overprized iPhones, Motorola execs won’t see the point in giving the users freedom. Apple’s revenue clearly shows that phone buyers hate the freedom to tinker, don’t want control over the software they can use and probably don’t mind if they have to hold their phone in a specific way in order to have a signal. Face it… We tech-savy people who care about that kind of stuff are a dying breed and will soon join the guys who prefer to build their own radios in a cigar box instead of buying a pre-built device.
Indeed. The world is growing increasingly stupid.