[Motorola Droid RAZR] onslaught86:
This is an interesting post, and - if nothing else - I appreciate the amount of thought you've put into it.

I can agree on some points, and do feel that social media smear campaigns and/or armchair activism will accomplish little beyond hot air, as Motorola have not shown any indication that they're willing to budge. Endless Facebook spam does little to aid anyone, since the poor social media team and other customer-facing representatives are, in all likelihood, on the side of the customers they have to deal with on a daily basis, and have little to no power to make the fundamental changes we seek.

I have no doubt that there are Motorola representatives both among us, and on 'our side', as it were. There have been leaks galore, including one that resulted in the Atrix's bootloader being unlocked, a massive boon for its community. The GSM RAZR has already seen an early ICS leak, which was very welcome. Whispers and rumours have it that Moto has had some falling out with the developer community at some point. If anyone knows more about this, I'm very interested.

What you're missing, here, is a combination of expectation and impression. To make it personal, this is the first Motorola device I have personally owned, as there simply haven't been any flagship Moto devices that came in GSM flavours as well as CDMA (Aside from the too-little-too-late nobody-really-cares Milestone range, and the Atrix, which was a great idea that ended up outdated by launch). The RAZR's wonderful industrial design spoke to me, as did its SAMOLED screen, as Samsung have spoiled me and I can't stand LCDs any more. So I took the plunge, shifting from the very popular and very well supported Galaxy S II. No offense to Moto, their hardware is lovely, but their software is awful, the battery life is awful (A bigger battery is a very blunt force solution, re: RAZR MAXX), and it disappoints me greatly that I can’t change that when I could with my past three Android phones, and even my last Windows Mobile phone. I don't fully regret making the shift, but in retrospect, I wish I'd bought a Galaxy Note or Galaxy Nexus instead.

There are reasons for locking bootloaders that, disagree as I may, make a degree of sense. There's 'security', there's DRM content, there's enterprise IT requirements, and there's (supposedly) carrier requirements. But at this point, there's really not much reason to keep it locked, as the only thing it does is prevent running unsigned kernels. ROMs can be flashed, security can be breached, bloatware can be removed, and all that reasoning is essentially null and void. There is no advantage to a locked bootloader when a device is already rooted, it really doesn't provide any added security - indeed, the ability to flash one's own custom kernel compiled from source is the domain of the security conscious, not the casual user who might haphazardly harm their device - which, again, is certainly possible without the bootloader being unlocked.

There is really no good, specific argument in favour of locking the bootloader, especially when other OEMs – see: HTC, Sony Ericsson – are happy to provide tools that allow this, and Motorola did lead consumers to believe that the RAZR would be unlocked in much the same manner. A quick Googling leads me to this post here, which I believe to be the origin: http://ausdroid.net/2011/10/21/motorola-razr-to-be-unlockable/

Here, one Christy Wyatt is quoted as saying that the GSM variant of the RAZR would have an unlockable/relockable bootloader, and that Verizon had disabled this feature. The interesting thing about “where carriers allow” is that a large number of GSM RAZRs are sold SIM-free, and contain no carrier branding. There is no carrier to disallow the unlocking of the bootloader. Where is the excuse here?

I think it’s safe to say that the majority of RAZR owners pushing for the bootloader unlock would be happy to give up any features Moto – or carriers – feel the bootloader needs to be locked to enable. Webtop? DRM? Citrix? Enterprise security? Honestly, it seems like Moto is trying to market their devices to a specific niche, the BYO corporate market, and it feels to me that there’s too many compromises for what amounts to a relatively small segment (Or one that’s happy with iOS/Blackberry/et cetera anyway). Take a record of my IMEI. Disable as many stock features as you like. I would even give up Activesync support if I could have that unlocked bootloader.

These phones are hardware platforms, computing platforms. Back when the original Milestone was released – the delayed GSM counterpart to the original Droid – its bootloader was locked where the Droid’s was not. Motorola representatives went as far as to suggest that development enthusiasts purchase the then-current Nexus One instead of a Milestone. Bad form to actively turn their customers towards the competition. Android development has bloomed in the last few years, and it’s now expected that one should be able to modify one’s mobile device, just as has been the case with desktop hardware for decades. When one buys a phone, one owns that hardware. Even if they only have a ‘license’ to Motorola’s (Flawed) flavour of the software, they currently have no choice but to use it, and it’s an expectation of the open-source Android operating systems that its hardware platforms should be open for development.

There’s two more factors, here. One is damage control. Regardless of how this came about, consumers DID get the impression that – at the very least – the open market GSM RAZR would have an unlockable bootloader. It does not. Moto have only issued vague statements, some of which specifically mentioned software solutions (rather than “Buy another phone”) but have done very little to clarify the situation, or to placate their increasingly upset userbase.

Motorola might not ‘owe’ us an unlocked bootloader, per se, but they do owe their audience some clarity and some answers. It was also suggested in the above article that the bootloader solution may be rolled out with the Ice-Cream Sandwich updates, but this too has been a point of contention. Many are very disappointed with the Q2 timeframe when, again, the expectation was that the RAZR would be swiftly updated and not leave fans disappointed that they opted for a device shipping with an old OS revision when the new one was announced the same day as the RAZR itself. Moto have not been clear – and yes, I know there’s the old business mantra of underpromise and overdeliver, but it’s been going from bad to worse. Which brings me to the final factor…

The ‘Developer Edition’ is no solution at all. It is hardly fair to anyone, least of all existing customers who purchased the original RAZR in good faith, to announce a hardware revision to circumvent a firmware restriction. No warranty, full retail price for the same hardware, and just to make it laughable, the development device can’t even be unlocked at present.

TL;DR?

Yes, childish spam and/or smear campaigns on social media channels are childish. But there is no good reason for the bootloader to remain locked, and many customers purchased the device under the impression that an unlock method would be provided. Motorola’s communication has been poor at best, and people are understandably upset.