By: Steph Dlugon
Hackaday.com is a blog that “serves up fresh hacks each day, everyday from around the web.” The entry from December 9th boasts the following accomplishment.
“Droid has been rooted. It was only a matter of time but we do like to celebrate this sort of thing. Why? Because if you pay for it you should own it. This will probably spark a flame war about licensing agreements and such in the comments but answer this: if it breaks, who pays to fix it? If you’re the one paying for it, you should be able to do what you want with it. “
So, what does this mean? And why would anyone choose to “root their Droid?”
One of the major marketing selling points of the Motorola Droid Smartphone is the development-friendly open source Android operating system. However, even though Android OS is open source, phones come packaged with closed-source Google applications for functionality such as the application store and GPS navigation. Google has asserted that these apps can only be provided through approved distribution channels by licensed distributors.
Hacking at the root level paves the way for “wireless tethering, customized UIs, multitouch support, and other features not specifically endorsed by Verizon on the Android 2.0 platform” according to an article published by PCWorld. Of course it also voids the warranty and renders the phone useless if something goes wrong.
