Of course, if you live in the States...

Story: Pwn Your PhoneTotal Replies: 6
Author Content
caitlyn

Mar 01, 2013
10:21 AM EDT
...rooting your phone is now illegal :(
penguinist

Mar 01, 2013
11:58 AM EDT
Not true, caitlyn.

It is illegal to unlock a phone that your carrier subsidized and sold to you. You must get the unlock by requesting it from your carrier, however, rooting your phone is quite something else, and there is no law against it in the US.

EFF: "The legal shield for jailbreaking and rooting your phone remains up - it'll protect us at least through 2015" http://www.eff.org/is-it-illegal-to-unlock-a-phone

We have the right to root our phones.
Jeff91

Mar 01, 2013
12:02 PM EDT
Lesson Learned: Don't purchase hardware you don't have "permission" to do whatever you want with the software on it.

It really is a shame Nokia went off the Microsoft deepend... I still use an N900, it is a great device with a Debian-based operating system powerd by apt-get that lets me do as I please.

~Jeff
penguinist

Mar 01, 2013
12:16 PM EDT
My phone is the Nokia N9. What a wonderful device, like the N900 it is quite open and it comes with vendor supported root. It would be hard for me to convince myself to go back to a closed device.

I would have liked to have been a mouse in the meeting room when Microsoft first met with Nokia to discuss the future of the N900/N9 products. I imagine it went something like this:

MS: We have lots of patents and we demand that you pay us a billion Euro a year for a license to sell the N900/N9 or else we will take you to court and drain the lifeblood out of you.

Nokia: But we don't have that much money to give you.

MS: We have an idea, sell our Windows OS instead.

Nokia: Ok
caitlyn

Mar 01, 2013
1:50 PM EDT
Thanks for the clarification.
TxtEdMacs

Mar 01, 2013
4:30 PM EDT
Hey Walking Bird,

You misquoted* MS:
Quoting:MS: We have an idea, sell our Windows OS instead.

Nokia: Ok


It went this way:
Quoting:MS: How about you sell our phones exclusively and we will pay you?!

Nokia: Ah ... Ok


YBT

* Artistic license as allowed in fiction.
penguinist

Mar 01, 2013
7:18 PM EDT
I'd really like to know how closely this "fiction" resembles how it really happened.

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