[Xperia Z General] CosmicDan:
I'm honestly a little annoyed with the whole "be happy it was supported for so long, let it die" attitude that I've let so many people convince me of.

That's a terrible attitude and typical consumer slave mentality.

We own the device completely (well, technically, those on unlocked BL own it but those on locked do not - more on this later), and the majority of it's software is open source. If Sony are simply refusing to release binaries/sources in a bid to force people to upgrade, then that's typical corruption of the capitalist landscape.

Yes, I know, they are a company, and business is business, they need to make money to stay alive. The modern economy of consumer technology is a throw-away one. Once the device is no longer supported, get a new one - so wasteful. I wonder, how many of their users will switch brands out of spite? Or simply be unable to upgrade for financial reasons? They could possibly still keep these customers *without* losing much of a share to people who would have normally upgraded to a newer handset; it's never really been done before so who knows if there would be a profit or loss? Someone has to try a new model...

....and that new model for product life cycle in *all* consumer technology could be this. A kind of program that allows clients to purchase a license to proprietary source code that is essential to hardware operation - they can protect their own IP still this way. Or maybe Qualcomm or other OEM vendors are to blame for this not happening though, they probably have their own IP embedded in these sources from the beginning. Bad design and/or corporate abuse for an OS that prides itself on being FOSS (or am I mistaken in Google's original goals). Sure, some people would pirate the sources, but many would be grateful and pay for it. They could make more money this way than simply EOL'ing the device and mothballing it. Besides, most of their users don't care about this stuff and would all upgrade anyway.

Surely I am not the only person who thinks this would be great and is not so impossible. Or am I talking nonsense? Ha-ha! I guess it is too risky for a company in trouble like Sony Mobile to try it out, it's a pretty radical concept.

I'm sorry to get political, but I'm just sick of how we buy something from a company and we own it, but the company still dictates to us what we are and aren't allowed to do with it in such a restricted manner. What's the point of open source when companies can still kill their hardware off? What is this, Apple? Is this what Google was going for? Why can't it be a bit more like PC? What if Project Ara has been Google's response to disappointment with companies not following Google's vision; has anybody ever considered that?

Regarding bootloader, I firmly believe that this custom firmware stuff should only ever be for unlocked. Phones are locked always for a legal or contract reason, usually because they don't yet own the phone (their provider still does and they are paying it off). But it would be nice if someone provided a means to allow bootloader unlock, officially, after an appropriate authorization process from the provider (or Sony themselves). But I digress.

[MENTION=4273424]kamarush[/MENTION], mate! I remember you from Xperia X10 (or maybe Xperia Play?) development. Nice to see you are around, and its excellent to hear a veteran developer like you has not quite given up yet.

I don't know if you remember me, but I did some pretty nifty things over the years on those devices (E.g. pre-MultiROM multiboot kernel for Xperia Play that supported GB > JB simultaneously without needing any flashing) but have not been able to work on the Z as I have a full-time job.

But I've actually lost my job recently, and I can't afford a new device (I was going to go for the Priv) - so I may very well get back into the scene and try to help where I can, soon! :)

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