With ICS, Any Possiblity of Bootloader Unlock, Your Thoughts?

DeadChex · October 24th, 2011, 07:35 PM

With ICS shipping to Devices soon, and the Fact that Verizion is in trouble with the FCC (It is Illegal for Verizon to Lock Some Bootloaders | xda-developers) not for the Droid 3 however...

Does anyone think that with ICS the Droid 3 may be pushed a new Bootloader as well? The update fits the time frame promised by Motorola to unlock the bootloaders.

Thoughts? Articles? Proof?

ndoren · October 25th, 2011, 11:49 AM

The Razr will be released with ICS and a locked bootloader in the US, at the request of Verizon. In all other countries, the Razr bootloader will remain unlocked, as per Motorola's promise to unlock them. That being said, there's no reason to believe that ICS on the Droid 3, whiie on the Verizon network, will have an unlocked bootloader, regardless of the FCC's issues with that.

Motorola Confirms Our Suspicions, DROID RAZR Will Have A Locked Bootloader - Droid Life: A Droid Community Blog

redsox985 · October 25th, 2011, 08:51 PM

I read an article, from a link over on XDA I believe, that said any 4G phone operating on Block C frequencies is required by law to be 100% open source. It was some clause where Google paid 4.6 billion towards buying the Block C frequencies from the FCC where Google mandated any device using the frequencies are required to be entirely open. VZW tired to dodge this, to no avail, but they are apparently still trying to lock boot loaders, so people are petitioning the FCC. What this means for us...IDK! But due to the compatibility between us and the Bionic, which possibly operates on Block C freq's (IDK), we could make some insights from their possible illegally locked boot loader.

ndoren · October 25th, 2011, 11:17 PM

There's a follow-up article on the same site as the link I give above... it's a lot more "legalese" and explains more of the details of that whole block C argument. When that agreement discusses "unlocked" they mean it's useable on other carriers' networks, and it's NOT in reference to the bootloader. Also he states that for the sake of "security" that Verizon's needs override those of the stipulations in the agreement. So, in his opinion (though it's just one person's take) we're screwed.

As far as I'm concerned... with the exception of kernel, which is hopelessly locked at this point and can't be modified or overwritten, we seem to be able circumvent all the other locked attributes. So, I'm pretty happy with what the developers have been able to give us in terms of rooting and installing ClockworkMod recovery. There's a deodexed SBF which allows provides for a lot of extra theme development, so really I good with what we have.

imnotmikal · October 26th, 2011, 10:59 AM

Just an FYI, it's not illegal for Verizon to lock bootloaders.
The law/documents state that they can't lock it unless there is a reasonable security risk, and according to Verizon, unlocked bootladers are security issues.