The thing is, modding that device isn't much different from jailbreaking your iPhone. If you're okay with invalidating the warrantee on the slug, then I don't understand why you'd complain about the iPhone/Pad model since it's largely the same: Keep Out!
And let's make sure that it really sinks in what they are saying here:
If you buy a device you do not own it and can not do with it what pleases you.
And this from the manufacturer of a computer that was as open as it could possibly be, the Apple II.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe how far we've come and then at the same time how much we have lost.
Steve Jobs is an absolutely awesome business guy, the way he has turned Apple around will be studied for decades. At the same time I wonder if it would have been possible without all this nastiness. If not then more power to him, but I prefer to think of the other Steve when I look at Apple and what might have been.
I recommend reading the actual documents the EFF is reporting on before drawing conclusions. I did so months ago and I think the EFF's reporting on it is grossly misleading.
The context is Apple's response to the EFF's filing for a DMCA exemption for jailbreaking as part of the DMCA rulemaking process. In other words: it is already illegal if it involves a copyright violation, and the EFF was trying to get it made a special exemption. Exemptions are considered based on certain requirements in the law, and a number have been granted. What Apple actually said was that jailbreaking should not be specially exempted from the DMCA for the reasons the EFF cited, because they don't meet the requirements in the law. If you actually look at the reasons the EFF cited, I think you'll find that they don't.
Again, I recommend reading the filings yourself, and the law on DMCA exemptions, and the list of existing exemptions, and make up your own mind.
"Congress did not envision the DMCA exemption process as a forum for economic restructuring of business models... As this submission will demonstrate, the evidence shows that a business model in which handsets can be widely jailbroken with the attendant problems that result would in fact hinder the creation and distribution of creative works for the platform."
I figure next up is the suggestion that Apple strongly lobbied against the DMCA.
Absolutely, I was using the slug as an example of what hardware is capable of in the hands of competent programmers. The fact that you have to void the warranty or 'jailbreak' it is really sad.
