Motorola Bootloader Unlock Petition

[hijackerjack]

Hey all,

You may know me from AllDroid, MyDroidWorld, XDA, etc haha. But yeah. I've started a petition towards Motorola Inc. asking them to unlock the bootloaders on their devices (Current and Upcoming) for the benefit of us all and them.

Motorola Bootloader Unlock Petition Petition

If you wouldnt mind signing, please do. All help is greatly appreciated. If you think its a waste of time, keep your mouth shut and leave the thread. I want to keep this thread clean and free of crap talk.

Thanks

 

[04redgto]

I'll do it, couldn't hurt. I don't think MOTO will care though......lol

 

[Iceman0803]

Not sure how effective it'll be but we can hope. I signed it.

 

[botero]

I signed. I think you should reword your petition though and start again. I will sign it again if you do. If you want to write an effective petition addressed to Motorola, you should write it to Motorola. It should read something like this:

"Motorola,

We, your customer base, responded positively to your original Droid 1 because you combined stellar hardware with an excellent open source platform. We revived your struggling company and supported your efforts to reemerge as a mobile phone leader. The reason that such a strong community formed around the original Droid phone is because of its openness. Android as an operating system is an open system. That is its strength. By locking the bootloader, you are taking the true strength of the OS and closing it off. Imagine a Windows computer you couldn't load Linux on, or even a different version on Windows.

Despite the commercial success of the Droid X, you will not retain the support of the Android community (those of us that preach android to the masses because of our technical acumen). There are other players in your market, such as HTC and Samsung that are proving to be far more open to our support. Right now, you build great hardware, but with the locked bootloader, you are closing off what would make your phones great as a whole.

Please as a service to your customer and fan base, unlock the bootloader on the Droid X, the Milestone and all future Android phones. If you do, we will reward you with our continued praise and more importantly, purchases of your otherwise excellent hardware.

Thank you,

The Android Community"

 

[mflynn]

Online don't work and given the stated intention of motorola, I'd say there's not even a snowball's chance in hell in getting moto to budge on this one.

 

[Leif]

I'm of the same opinion as you, and signed it, but you'll likely get better feedback if you tell these people that on #freefred on freenode.

Also, I agree, that petition is worded horribly.

 

[Leif]

Online don't work and given the stated intention of motorola, I'd say there's not even a snowball's chance in hell in getting moto to budge on this one.

I agree. Although we might have a slight chance of getting the Open Handset Alliance to listen to us...

 

[torifile]

But I thought android was supposed to be open? It's easier to jailbreak an iPhone than to deal with the Moto bootloader, it seems. Between this crap and the no sideloading on AT&T android phones, I wonder if the carriers are trying to kill the OS before it gets a chance to really take on the iPhone... Google needs to get some control over their OS before the carriers and OEMs kill it.

 

[Leif]

Yes...android is open...open to you, open to hardware manufacturer, open to carriers, open to app developers (not in that order), take a look at some of Android's first presentations back in previous years of Google I/O...they were talking about it being open to all of these groups (well, they merged hardware manufacturers and carriers into one entity). The idea was that if you didn't like a device...you can buy another one on whatever platform you want...the problem? Well, you don't have all of the 'choices' Google wanted you to have, (yet anyway), as such, your stuck with ok hardware that's pseudo open, good hardware that IS open (on another network only though), and great hardware that's locked down tight. (Well...there's other choices, but you get the gist), this is why Google's online store would have been great...if it worked.

 

[Poohbear]

I signed. I think you should reword your petition though and start again. I will sign it again if you do. If you want to write an effective petition addressed to Motorola, you should write it to Motorola. It should read something like this:

"Motorola,

We, your customer base, responded positively to your original Droid 1 because you combined stellar hardware with an excellent open source platform. We revived your struggling company and supported your efforts to reemerge as a mobile phone leader. The reason that such a strong community formed around the original Droid phone is because of its openness. Android as an operating system is an open system. That is its strength. By locking the bootloader, you are taking the true strength of the OS and closing it off. Imagine a Windows computer you couldn't load Linux on, or even a different version on Windows.

Despite the commercial success of the Droid X, you will not retain the support of the Android community (those of us that preach android to the masses because of our technical acumen). There are other players in your market, such as HTC and Samsung that are proving to be far more open to our support. Right now, you build great hardware, but with the locked bootloader, you are closing off what would make your phones great as a whole.

Please as a service to your customer and fan base, unlock the bootloader on the Droid X, the Milestone and all future Android phones. If you do, we will reward you with our continued praise and more importantly, purchases of your otherwise excellent hardware.

Thank you,

The Android Community"

I agree, the wording needs to change if they even want to take the petition seriously. The above statement that was written sounds a lot better.

 

[.46caliber]

But I thought android was supposed to be open? It's easier to jailbreak an iPhone than to deal with the Moto bootloader, it seems. Between this crap and the no sideloading on AT&T android phones, I wonder if the carriers are trying to kill the OS before it gets a chance to really take on the iPhone... Google needs to get some control over their OS before the carriers and OEMs kill it.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Un-locking the Motrola boot loader lock is very different than jailbreaking an iPhone. "Rooting", the Linux originator equivalent to "jailbreaking" was achieved in just under 1 week from release day on the X.

Android has nothing, zero, zilch, zip to do with what VZW, ATT, Moto or anyone one else does. Android is a free operating system. If VZW, ATT or Moto want to puck it up on their devices, they can.

Google is still releasing completely open, un-locked Android OS releases. Froyo, Android 2.2, has been out for awhile now. The pure, untouched source code. We are all waiting on our respective manufacturers, Moto and HTC and Samsung, to push the versions they build from this code that work with our phones.

If Google started mandating what device manufacturers did with the source code once release, it would be in blatant contradiction of everything that the OHA stands for and the idea of open source/Linux as a whole.

Your purchase of an X or Inc or Aria or Captivate is what brings on locking of devices. God bless the hackers and ROMmers that give a big finger to Moto and HTC and ATT and say, "Screw you. We're gonna do it anyway. Just watch."

 

[.46caliber]

Well, you don't have all of the 'choices' Google wanted you to have, (yet anyway), as such, your stuck with ok hardware that's pseudo open, good hardware that IS open (on another network only though), and great hardware that's locked down tight. (Well...there's other choices, but you get the gist), this is why Google's online store would have been great...if it worked.

If Google would have sold the N1 at cost, Android would have been where it is now, back in March. Though I think the device is worth $600, only a fraction of Android users are able to justify that kind of spending on a cell phone. Especially when you can go to your carrier, that you weren't planning on leaving, and get an equal piece of hardware for a subsidized cost. The lust for a new phone often overpowers the consideration on the differences between the manufacturer's edited OS and pure Android.

 

[anon(40324)]

I would be more willing to sign the reworded version than the current version. The reworded version sounds much more professional, and I think the very, very small chance that Moto would listen to something like this would be aided by a professional letter showing that it's educated and informed consumers who are concerned with the product as opposed to a bunch of developers/hackers who just want to do their own thing on their phones. That being said, while I agree with the reworded document, I think claiming to have revived their "struggling company" is a bit presumptuous. With another final edit, the reworded document would be much more compelling and less ostracizing. We also need more than the current 286 signatures...

 

[1088933]

Not sure how far this will get with Moto but sure

 

[mflynn]

Given the success of the droid x, its clear that that consumers are not too concerned about the boot loader, if they were, they'd (we'd) vote with out wallets.

The desire to load custom roms, is for only a small subset of users, and opening that door also increases moto's support issues, as some less then capable users will try it and brick their phones. I don't agree with moto encrypting the bootloader but I can understand their perspective.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't see an online petition affecting moto's stance especially when the phone is selling like hot cakes.

 

[derpudel]

You are comparing apples and oranges. Un-locking the Motrola boot loader lock is very different than jailbreaking an iPhone. "Rooting", the Linux originator equivalent to "jailbreaking" was achieved in just under 1 week from release day on the X.

Android has nothing, zero, zilch, zip to do with what VZW, ATT, Moto or anyone one else does. Android is a free operating system. If VZW, ATT or Moto want to puck it up on their devices, they can.

Google is still releasing completely open, un-locked Android OS releases. Froyo, Android 2.2, has been out for awhile now. The pure, untouched source code. We are all waiting on our respective manufacturers, Moto and HTC and Samsung, to push the versions they build from this code that work with our phones.

If Google started mandating what device manufacturers did with the source code once release, it would be in blatant contradiction of everything that the OHA stands for and the idea of open source/Linux as a whole.

Your purchase of an X or Inc or Aria or Captivate is what brings on locking of devices. God bless the hackers and ROMmers that give a big finger to Moto and HTC and ATT and say, "Screw you. We're gonna do it anyway. Just watch."

Great Post! Agree 100% All of us bought this phone knowing it was locked down tight. Some of us probably figured that in time, it would be rooted (which it has).
Here's an idea...maybe the manufacturers should sell unlocked phones directly to the public, with no warranty and no carrier for a big dollar price...just for the hackers to mess with. oh wait....guess they already do that within their own company! It would be really cool to know someone that works for Moto in their software dev dept.

 

[Leif]

Meh, I like your idea of two phones...but I have a better idea (imo anyway). Every device has a unique id (probably several unique ID's actually). So currently the bootloader responds to ONE (well, supposedly one), public-private keypair, motorolla's. What I would like to do, is get the bootloader to respond to one more, mine. What motorolla *could* do, is set this up as part of their motodev program. (When you sign up, you can get your phone attached to your account). At this point, you can put your own roms on YOUR device, but no one else's device. That way, you keep the security the locked bootloader gives you, and you make the hackers happy (also, as a side effect, by requiring the people to set up a public/private keypair, you weed out some of the people who probably shouldn't be loading their own roms anyway).

 

[brandonx1000]

signed.

 

[wildman]

I signed. I think you should reword your petition though and start again. I will sign it again if you do. If you want to write an effective petition addressed to Motorola, you should write it to Motorola. It should read something like this:

"Motorola,

We, your customer base, responded positively to your original Droid 1 because you combined stellar hardware with an excellent open source platform. We revived your struggling company and supported your efforts to reemerge as a mobile phone leader. The reason that such a strong community formed around the original Droid phone is because of its openness. Android as an operating system is an open system. That is its strength. By locking the bootloader, you are taking the true strength of the OS and closing it off. Imagine a Windows computer you couldn't load Linux on, or even a different version on Windows.

Despite the commercial success of the Droid X, you will not retain the support of the Android community (those of us that preach android to the masses because of our technical acumen). There are other players in your market, such as HTC and Samsung that are proving to be far more open to our support. Right now, you build great hardware, but with the locked bootloader, you are closing off what would make your phones great as a whole.

Please as a service to your customer and fan base, unlock the bootloader on the Droid X, the Milestone and all future Android phones. If you do, we will reward you with our continued praise and more importantly, purchases of your otherwise excellent hardware.

Thank you,

The Android Community"

I agree, wording is the most important thing in the legal world, one communication error on what the final outcome that user is expecting and the whole argument falls apart.