Now is the time to act!

HTC has now promised to review their bootloader policy. This does not mean opening up to our community. This means exactly what it says: just a review.http://www.facebook.com/notes/htc/update-on-bootloaders/10150305151453084

We have to make our collective voice heard loudly and heard often. We want to draw as much positive attention to ourselves as possible, while this issue is under review.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Bootloaders == unlocked

‎"There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones. I want you to know that we've listened. Today, I'm confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience," Peter Chou, CEO of HTC




Congrats Guys.
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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

How To Help

How can you help us? By contacting HTC in every way possible. We encourage you to be polite and firm.

Snailmail is our most preferred method, as it takes the most time for HTC to address, but if you won't or can't mail them a letter please email them and post on their Facebook face.

You can find a sample letter here. Remember, personalizing your letter will make it more meaningful to HTC.

Snail Mail (Preferred, takes more time for HTC to address):

HTC America
13920 SE Eastgate Way, Suite 400
Bellevue, Washington 98005

HTC Europe Co. Ltd
7th Floor
Thames Central
Hatfield Road
Slough SL1 1QE
United Kindgom

eMail: (Please, please please be extremely polite, rude emails will hurt us!)
General Support:

Jon Maron (Vice President of Marketing, Americas at HTC)

Keith Nowak (Senior Public Relations Manager at HTC)

Petition (Please sign it)

Facebook (Not to shabby, post our letter here!)

Twitter (all but useless):

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Example Form Letter

To Whom It May Concern,

It has came to my attention that HTC will be reviewing their bootloader policy. I hope that you side with the independent developers, and open up your Android products to third parties. Locking your bootloaders undermines the spirit of open source, and pushes developers to other manufacturers.

HTC and Android grew, and grew quickly because of the support of the open source community. We are the ones that send you detailed bug reports, we are the ones that submit patches to the Android Open Source Project, we are the ones that built the base you work off of and more importantly we are the ones that buy your products.

By continuing to lock your devices down, you are alienating the very community that supports you most of all. You are preventing us from learning, from improving, and from enjoying Android. What you have done is against the spirit of Android and the vision Google had.

You were once known as the developer-friendly OEM, and now you are referred to as Motorola's little brother. Please stop locking your bootloaders, and give the independent developers a legitmate way to continue their work.

A suitable compromise would be to follow in the path of your Nexus One. Allow unlocking of the device, but mark it as such once it has been unlocked, so you know if it has been altered. Doing so would also remove the need for dangerous exploits to be written, which while they give us the access we want, exposes all of your users to dangerous malware.

Until you allow us greater access to the devices we own, I promise to purchase no more HTC products.

Sincerely,
An HTC Enthusiast
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