Quote:
Originally Posted by gTen
Why would it matter to HTC? think about it, whether you buy from sprint, Verizon, or directly..you still buy their phone...the only ones who could care are the carriers....HTC is not effected in any way. Not to mention, carriers distribute the boot loader updates as well. It is not like they are distributing source, they are distributing something thats only usable by those that bought the device. So HTC is in no way effected.
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There are several reasons why HTC would care. First and foremost is that it interferes with their marketing plan. HTC, and many manufactures control the sales of their newest products by controlling the software that is available for the previous version. This is simple marketing 101. The more people with access to the latest software version the fewer people who will buy the newest product. I'm sure HTC would have many other reasons as well.
They do care about this very much. With each generation of their devices the more difficult it is to unlock them. The first XDA that HTC released was very simple to flash a new ROM. You simply put it into bootloader and said yes to dumping the ROM onto your storage card. You then put the card in the device you wanted to upgrade, put it into bootloader and it picked up the file on the card and automatically started to flash the ROM. The next version had what was know as a country code. You had to dump the ROM, then using a hex editor you had to edit the first few line....and so on. HTC and others put a lot of effort into securing their ROMs. They don't do this because they have nothing better to do.
They've been somewhat tolerant of this over the years. Only occasionally do HTC, MS, or the carriers try to stop it. It is a fine line that we come closer to crossing all the time as more and more people get into flashing ROMs, and it becomes more widespread.
Dave