Motorola boot loader Petition

[Anubis]

figured it was only a matter of time

yea online petitions generally don't do shit,

http://www.groubal.com/motorola-lockedencrypted-bootloader-policy/

 

[SunnyD]

Petitions against corporate entities do even less than shit. This is pointless.

 

[cheezy321]

LOL.

Yeah, this will work wonders...

 

[fbrdphreak]

So, someone enlighten me here as I'm coming from a Droid 1 which was always 100% open to my knowledge.

The Thunderbolt's bootloader was locked (and now cracked). The Droid X was cracked and you can load custom ROMs on it. The Atrix et al will eventually be cracked and not be an issue.

Right? What am I missing here? Clearly this is a pain and delays development, putting the geeks-of-the-world to work on cracking bootloaders instead of fapping, but is there some larger issue that I'm missing? I guess with all the hubbub I figured the Motorola's were off limits to custom ROMs due to this.

 

[Bateluer]

So, someone enlighten me here as I'm coming from a Droid 1 which was always 100% open to my knowledge.

The Thunderbolt's bootloader was locked (and now cracked). The Droid X was cracked and you can load custom ROMs on it. The Atrix et al will eventually be cracked and not be an issue.

Right? What am I missing here? Clearly this is a pain and delays development, putting the geeks-of-the-world to work on cracking bootloaders instead of fapping, but is there some larger issue that I'm missing? I guess with all the hubbub I figured the Motorola's were off limits to custom ROMs due to this.

Not quite. The TB's bootloader was signed, but not encrypted. The DX, Atrix, and Bionic have signed and encrypted bootloaders. These have not been cracked. And likely will never be. You cannot load custom roms on these devices, as you cannot load anything other than the Motorola kernel. What you can do, however, is alter the /system partition. For some, this is enough, but its a substantial roadblock for development on the phone. Its why development on the D2 and Dx is in the dark ages compared to other Android phones.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Thanks for the background. So, what can you do by altering /system?

I think this answers my question of waiting for the Bionic, as I absolutely want to load custom ROMs.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Not quite. The TB's bootloader was signed, but not encrypted. The DX, Atrix, and Bionic have signed and encrypted bootloaders. These have not been cracked. And likely will never be. You cannot load custom roms on these devices, as you cannot load anything other than the Motorola kernel. What you can do, however, is alter the /system partition. For some, this is enough, but its a substantial roadblock for development on the phone. Its why development on the D2 and Dx is in the dark ages compared to other Android phones.

I do believe my Liberty Rom has something to say about that.

You may only be able to alter the system partition, but it doesn't mean that there is no ROM development. There are many Roms for the X. Sure the kernel is the same, and until Moto releases the bootloader it will have to do. But I'm still happy with the state of development on the X.

I still have speed, snappiness, root access, and overclocking ability. I'm happy.

 

[Bateluer]

Thanks for the background. So, what can you do by altering /system?

I think this answers my question of waiting for the Bionic, as I absolutely want to load custom ROMs.

There's still some decent ROMs out there for the Dx, and I'm sure they'll be some decent ones for the Bionic eventually too. It just takes longer to do, compared to the open phones that have full roms in a matter of days.

 

[abaez]

This is like the fourth petition I've seen since the DX came out.

 

[Bateluer]

Motorola is asking on Facebook what you want to see from future Moto phones.

http://twitter.com/FreeMyMoto/status/53488984428511232

 

[Anubis]

Motorola is asking on Facebook what you want to see from future Moto phones.

http://twitter.com/FreeMyMoto/status/53488984428511232

lol top 3 are unlocked bootloader,

 

[vshah]

i feel like now that sony has announced they will support some sort of unlocking method, if one more manufacturer announces a similar thing then there may be pressure on the rest to follow suit.

 

[VashHT]

I just don't understand why they even do it. First off it's a small % of people who even bother with custom ROMs/kernels. Secondly, from what I've seen it's easier to totally brick the DX or D2 than other android phones because of the locked bootloader, so they can't argue that locking it down lowers return rates or something stupid like that. So what reason is there to do it? I bet it's just some a-hole who works higher up in their phone division who has a hard on for locking stuff down. I work in hardware engineering myself and some people just have weird things that they like to put everywhere.