Comment by diggan
1 month ago
As is usual, there seems to be a massive misunderstanding what the directive is and means. The TLDR is that the directive contains no clauses that compels phone makers to keep the Android bootloader locked or that forbids EU users from unlocking it.
Samsung's public reasoning might be that disabling unlocking the bootloader because of the directive, but there is nothing in the directive that forces them to lock the bootloader. It does sound like a convenient scapegoat if they don't want to talk about the real reasons though.
The phone makes who end up disabling the unlocking of bootloaders are all doing so on their own accord, not because some regulation is forcing them to.
Finally, the EU’s broader right-to-repair policies makes it kind of impossible that an outright prohibition of unlocking the bootloader could happen. But of course, nuance doesn't make people click article titles on the web...
I just hate smartphone, at this point I just want pocket PC. I don't want to deal with this for the decades to come.
Exactly, I've used unlocked phones for years and treat my smartphone as a pocket computer. I'm fed up with all that security nonsense as it's a fucking hindrance to how I want to configure my devices.
In fact, my actual phone is now just a feature phone and the smartphone my portable computer with internet access via WiFi and a pocket router with SIM card.
Isn't there a feature phone in the market that is 5G, good battery and capable of sharing its internet via wifi hotspot?
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Same here, was hoping the Pinephone to be that, and while it's cool and overall neat, the software wasn't there the last time I tried (year ago or so). Hopefully one day :)
with linux ofc
What can be used for evil, will be used for evil.
Lawmakers need to assume that their laws will be interpreted and abused in the worst possible way.
> Lawmakers need to assume that their laws will be interpreted and abused in the worst possible way.
Is there anything from the current directive's text that makes you believe they didn't already? Again, this directive doesn't require them to disable the unlocking of bootloaders in any shape or form.
If the company want to disable the unlocks, they'll do so for as long as there is no regulation forces them to keep them open, regardless if there are unrelated directives or not.
In general, you cannot stop people from pointing at a thing and claiming it's something else.