MOTODEV Blog

[#1]

My name is Lori Fraleigh and I manage the technical team behind the MOTODEV program at Motorola.  We provide tools, like MOTODEV Studio, and a variety of technical services including application testing services, developer education materials traditional technical support and serve as experts on our discussion boards.  Today I'm stepping a bit outside of my day-to-day job to try to answer some questions we have seen not only on MOTODEV, but on various other sites.  I've worked with a number of other Motorolans to bring you the information in this post.

For the Android application developer, MOTODEV provides a wealth of resources to help you create and bring your applications to market.  We provide a comprehensive Eclipse-based development environment, MOTODEV Studio, as well as SDK add-ons which provide emulator images that represent the software on our handsets.  To aid developers who may not have access to physical handsets, or who may wish to test on a carrier network unavailable in their physical location, we provide access to handsets via the Motorola Virtual Device Lab at DeviceAnywhere.  All Motorola application developer resources can be found at http://developer.motorola.com.

We understand there is a community of developers interested in going beyond Android application development and experimenting with Android system development and re-flashing phones.  For these developers, we highly recommend obtaining either a Google ADP1 developer phone or a Nexus One, both of which are intended for these purposes.  At this time, Motorola Android-based handsets are intended for use by consumers and Android application developers, and we have currently chosen not to go into the business of providing fully unlocked developer phones.

The use of open source software, such as the Linux kernel or the Android platform, in a consumer device does not require the handset running such software to be open for re-flashing.  We comply with the licenses, including GPLv2, for each of the open source packages in our handsets.  We post appropriate notices as part of the legal information on the handset and post source code, where required, at http://opensource.motorola.com.  Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years.  This practice is driven by a number of different business factors.  When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so.  We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration.

We do hear your feedback and read your posts - whether on our MOTODEV discussion boards, our Owners' Forums, our Facebook pages, Twitter, or a variety of other sites on the web. We take the time to understand the issue and then pass the information on to the appropriate product (or other) teams within Motorola.  We then try to respond with explanations or updates as we get the answers.  Thank you for your continued feedback.

If you have further questions, comments, and feedback, you can comment on this post as well as use the following sites:

Use of open-source software at Motorola: http://opensource.motorola.com
MOTODEV and Android application development on Motorola handsets: http://community.developer.motorola.com
End-user support for handset owners: https://supportforums.motorola.com/community/google-android

July 16, 2010 Update:

We realize many recent articles still point to this blog post.  For our most recent statement, please see

http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Statement-on-recent-bootloader-and-eFuse-que...

[#2]

Hi Lori,

This is a very bad signal to all non-US Motorola users. Because of all the troubles with the Milestones 2.0.1 update and the closed bootloader you heavily damaged the brand "Motorola" here in Europe. The early adopters are really annoyed about the behaviour of Motorola.  You will see the result in all the foras, blogs, on facebook, ...

I made my mind, that I will never ever buy a Motorola device again. :-(

Hartl

[#3]

Instead of not really answering anything apart that DROID does for some obscur/non-diclose reason.

And maybe "there is a specific business reason for" just to ignor your customers (loose them, in order to not have to "support" us (our devices and our complains).

Just leak or such the the RSA key or an unsigned bootloader, and you will stop see all this complain, and you might even "learn" a few tricks from the developper community, and port-back to your official rom (the rest of your consumers with official roms might even get them sooner, with a community of developper testing/optimizing new things).

A unhappy customer, stopping anyone who see my Milestone from buying one.

[#4]

So what is this specific business reason that made you not lock down the Droid but Milestone? Do you think europeans cannot handle an open handset? Locking down your phones might very well be what Motorola has done for years but we all know it's very much against the spirit of Android.

Like many people have said, we are not expecting Motorola to support custom roms or anything like that, just not actively fight against them. Why not let people register their IMEIs as dev phones and void their warranty? If they screw up and brick their phones they're on their own. 

Personally I feel lied to by Motorola (Not to mention cheated out of several 100 euros) since the claim was that the Milestone was a phone without limits, only to find out later that it's locked down. I just can't understand that if for instance HTC allows user to hack their phones Motorola can't (And no I don't want a Nexus One or ADP1, I love the Milestone).

Open the Milestone! Let those that want to develop it and make it even better.

[#5]

"When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so."

That means there's a specific business reason for locking up a phone like the Milestone. And that reason would be what exactly? Losing early adopters, enthusiasts and normal customers who all expected the Milestone to be as open as the Droid or __every other Android smartphone device__ seems like a pretty shallow business idea to me.

I have no idea how to run a business of course, but I pretty much knew that reallocating your handset devision to Android  needs backing of the "geek crowd". And you screwed us, big time.

I will follow your advice and buy a Nexus One when it becomes available in Europe. And I won't buy anything Motorola related again.

[#6]

If you want to attract developers, you must catter to their needs and desires, and give them the platform then need to work on.

By using a loophole in the GPL V2 to lock people out of their own hardware, and refusing to allow developers to test their applications in real hardware, you are insuring nobody will be interested in "motodev" , whatever the name of your custom nonstandard platform is. Its nothing more but an attempt to gain support by exploiting developers and take away from support with the general platform (Android) to get more support for your closed hardware. Same way that you use open source kernel but ensure that nobody can compile and use their own hardware to run their software.

Your attemps will fail, and you will go under. Nobody will buy your locked flawed hardware outside of the US. You have lost a chance to get into an open community by continuing to force users into a closed, nonstandard platform.

[#7]

At first - sorry for my bad gramma cause english is not my nativ language!

Re: Why do you digitally sign the Milestone firmware (and don't do it on the Droid)?

" there is a specific business reason for doing so"."

This is not a answer to our question!

We are interested what the reason is!

Nobody told us before we baught the phone!

In germany your slogan is: Unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten - yes we are allowed to pay 450Euros for a locked phone!

This is not what i aspected as i baught this phone!

No other Android phone is locked this way - you hear us? Okay so lets go to the second level of our voice - maybe i´,m only a peace of sand in the dessert - but i´m going to tell everyone (even if he don´t want to hear it) how motorola´s doing business in europe /with european customers. Okay Moto u think that the rest of the world is not worth to be treated equally like American customers? Then only sell your products inside usa! Chinese and Korean companies will be very pleased about your statements and your business strategy!

4 sure - this was my last moto phone even if hell freezes!

[#8]

So you're actually telling your customers to go buy their phones somewhere else? Ok, will do next time ...

[#9]

I will treat your response as answer to my post in the discussion area on the Motodev Facebook page
(http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?Did=23911812380&topic=11765)

First of all I want to thank you for having the decency to respond, while I'm not
happy with the content of your answer I do feel a response to user questions/demands
is much better than ignoring, or worse deleting threads like Motorola has done for the past
couple of weeks regarding this issue.

I'm not going to argue anymore for an open boatload, for me your response was clear enough to understand
that this is "out of the question" however I do want to respond on some parts of your post.

About the confusion and frustration, while the confusion may not only have been caused by Motorola but also due to the media referring the Milestone as being just the international/GSM version of the Droid (which is quite understandable in itself as appearance, internal hardware and the code base are largely the same)

I feel that the frustration (and even anger) many developers and end users feel is the fault of Motorola.
I guess Motorola does not care much for the Milestone (users) as the number of milestones  sold
is only is a fraction (I would be surprised if it would be more than 1%) of that of the  Droid sales
but personally I feel discriminated and treated as a second class developer as well as
end user. As developer as the "specific business reason" for not preventing custom kernels to be flashed
apparently does not exists for the "GSM version of the Droid" making it impossible to do with my phone what 99% of the others can. As end user as Motorola does not give the same level of support as with the Droid. (Eg. Releasing the 2.0.1 two months later, still not having  a complete Motonav portal three months after launch etc)
This apparent lack of interest of Motorola for the Milestone and it's user leaves me wonder why Motorola even bothered in releasing it in the first place.

As it's unusual a company recommends buying a product from competing brand instead of its own I conclude that Motorola does not want me (and others) as customer (and developer) which leaves me with one final item;
How can we dissolve our company - customer relation in for both parties satisfactory way?
Can I send my phone back for a refund? and also how can I terminate my MOTODEV account?  

If you or anybody of Motorola wishes to talk in person during the MWC 2010 I will be  available in Google's developer lounge, Wednesday at 13:00 alternatively you can pull my email address or telephone number from the Motodev account database (forum alias rj7855)

Robin Jacobs

PS: It's a shame...I really like the hardware of the Milestone

[#10]

Thanks for your reply,

"When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so.  We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration."

The Motorola Milestone was released short after the Droid and got the same advertisment. Beside from some little differences like GSM and Motonav (because Google Maps  Navigation was not available outside US) both are the same devices.

Thats why your customers in europe (like me) bought the Milestone. We had to pay more to get less (no free navigation, only a trial of Motonav and the phone itself is more expensive - this depends not on tax). Some numbers: Retail: 540$ excluding Tax, 640$ including. Well, not that pricy and a lot of money for a phone.

I bought this phone after reading lots of droid and milestone reviews, blogs and community pages. There was no statement from Motorola or anybody else that the european version is restricted. If there would have been anything like that, just a no go. Early adaptors, techies and Android Users are not willing to pay a premium tag on iPhone like systems.

Common Sense: Droid will come to europe as Milestone.

It is a fact that Motorola would have never gotten that many sales in Germany with a clear statement before shipping regarding the build in restrictions. This is not confusion, it is a misleading statement.

In my case there is no way for an easy return because I bought it 2 month ago. So I have to find a way to deal with this situation now. Recommending Motorola products is for sure not part of that. Motorola got lots of highend buyers and geeks upset. These guys (like me) would have promoted your products for free but feeling like a 2nd class customer isnt that great..

regards,

Mario Herdlicka

[#11]

Glad I found this thread.

I was on the verge of buying a Milestone (naively assuming it was basically a UK Droid) as a powerful platform to develop and test Android applications.  Now I'm not so sure.  Motorola management seem to be happily shooting itself in the foot here, and glib "specific business reason" management-speak doesn't help. 

It must be so frustrating for engineers to develop a phone with such potential and then see it crippled by dubious management/marketing decisions.

Time to reconsider my choice.

[#12]

You said that "the use of open source software, such as the Linux kernel or the Android platform, in a consumer device does not require the handset running such software to be open for re-flashing". This is FAR from certain, and I believe it is FLAT WRONG. In fact there is little doubt that the GPLv2's spirit opposes to this since it requires that ALL items required for kernel installation be given out with the kernel source. And any software is NOT to be understood as being installed if it cannot be run. The truth is that this aspect of the GPLv2 has not been tested in court yet, but it might well be first tested with the Motorola Milestone if you don't provide a solution to this issue.

[#13]

Free the Milestone Bootloader guys. It's a win - win situation. Look how popular a phone like the g1/hero wes and how you still can get updates though an enthusiastic modding community.

[#14]

Thanks to everyone for your comments so far.  We understand that some of frustrations come with the speed at which new Android updates are being pushed out to our handsets.  Motorola has recently published a timeline for software upgrades here: https://supportforums.motorola.com/community/manager/softwareupgrades.  Upgrades do take time, and we hope to explain that in more depth in a later blog post.  In the meantime, please monitor this web page for more information.

Also, I've seen statements that indicate people believe that the Milestone is the only secured Android handset or that all Motorola Android handsets in the US are not secured.  Neither of these is correct.  Motorola has announced nine different Android handsets under twelve different names (http://developer.motorola.com/products/).  I'm trying to confirm this, but I believe the Droid is the only one of these nine handsets to boot unsigned images.  Now, I don't expect this news to win over a bunch of new fans, but I did want to make more correct information available.

@Someone, we do not prevent application developers from testing apps on our handsets.  If you code to the standard public Android APIs, you can install and test your application on Motorola Android handsets.  If you are writing applications that use private / internal Android APIs or rely on native functionality not published via the NDK, then you need a phone intended for that level of development.

[#15]

there is one common motivation not to buy an apple iphone: (power) users are sick of being treated like kids and locked in whatever cage apple comes up with. people like me get goosebumps and all kinds of rashes from such behaviour, even if a device might be "better" in some respects.

android has brought a welcome change. at the same time android has changed the cellphone game. it brings the highly successful PC concept to the mobile phone.

unfortunately motorola is still stuck (and your statements sadly prove it) in the last century mode of producing cellphones. like before the introduction of the PC which fortunately split soft and hardware.

as it stands, buyers have to be aware that they're buying into an old concept of a "locked package". which means support is essentially frozen or at low priority shortly into the product cycle, whether and when we will get an upgrade if at all is being left to decide by the beancounters etc...

of course my "personal product cycle" is longer than the one aimed for by the producers, especially when i love a piece of hardware. so i'm still interested in support 2-3 years down the road. motorola (mobile phones) might not be around any more (although i don't wish you ill, it wouldn't surprise me a bit), android 3.0 might be out and so forth. who takes care of ME then? certainly not moto... since they will be busy pushing out 50 half-baked devices a year, if they're still in the game.

i would prefer a community supported and multi-year optimized milestone any day however.

you should stick to producing nice hardware (and the milestone IS nice, that's why it's worth fighting for an open bootloader) and at least leave the options open on the software side.

you can disagree on that of course, but you shouldn't be surprised if you dig on your own demise in the process...

you can keep shooting the messengers by deleting posts, threads and comments. i won't help you a bit though. word's out, as it stands it will never be never be moto again for me unfortunately, and i will keep my acquaintances stay away as well.

in this league of devices you're not catering to the "dumb" "mass market" customers but rather to the tech-savvy leading-edge opinion leaders, but that's probably just another point you missed.... sad sad sad.

as for the "specific business reason" difference with the droid, i would really love to see where that comes from. that's gotta be the joke of the day.

sorry for all the negativity, i hope it gets you thinking though!

kind regards, an otherwise normally cheerful and happy power user/developer/techie

[#16]

@ Lori Fraleigh

Regarding the first paragraph, Yes there seem to be some frustrations about the speed that updates are available, but that was not the topic of the OP. As a developer I can only say that it seems that Motorola works on updates in complete separate branches of the code for each region of the Milestone IMO not the most efficient way to manage near identical software versions.

Seconds paragraph, If you look at the requests on facebook/support forums we are not asking to remove signature checking for every device. (And I can imagine that for MotoBlur devices there would be more concern about protecting IP) The protest is specifically geared towards the Milestone as being discriminated relative to it´s North American version. The users, press and even Motorola itself consider the Droid and Milestone to be the same model (Motorola as can be concluded by reading this press release http://mediacenter.motorol a.com/content/detail.aspx? ReleaseID=12433&NewsAreaID =2 where the droid is not listed as separate device and the milestone listed as first Android 2.0 device) It seems unethical to discriminate +- 1% customers (World Milestone Users) in respect to 99% North American Milestone (AKA Droid) users.

PS: Would you (or somebody else at Motorola) be kind enough to answer my questions expressed in my last post "As it's unusual a company recommends buying a product from competing brand instead of its own I conclude that Motorola does not want me (and others) as customer (and developer) which leaves me with one final item;
How can we dissolve our company - customer relation in for both parties satisfactory way?
Can I send my phone back for a refund? and also how can I terminate my MOTODEV account? 
" (http://community.developer.motorola.com/t5/MOTODEV-Blog/Custom-ROMs-and-Motorola-s-Android-Handsets/... )

[#17]

there is one common motivation not to buy an apple iphone: (power) users are sick of being treated like kids and locked in whatever cage apple comes up with. people like me get goosebumps and all kinds of rashes from such behaviour, even if a device might be "better" in some respects.

android has brought a welcome change. at the same time android has changed the cellphone game. it brings the highly successful PC concept to the mobile phone.

unfortunately motorola is still stuck (and your statements sadly prove it) in the last century mode of producing cellphones. like before the introduction of the PC which fortunately split soft and hardware.

as it stands, buyers have to be aware that they're buying into an old concept of a "locked package". which means support is essentially frozen or at low priority shortly into the product cycle, whether and when we will get an upgrade if at all is being left to decide by the beancounters etc...

of course my "personal product cycle" is longer than the one aimed for by the producers, especially when i love a piece of hardware. so i'm still interested in support 2-3 years down the road. motorola (mobile phones) might not be around any more (although i don't wish you ill, it wouldn't surprise me a bit), android 3.0 might be out and so forth. who takes care of ME then? certainly not moto... since they will be busy pushing out 50 half-baked devices a year, if they're still in the game.

i would prefer a community supported and multi-year optimized milestone any day however.

you should stick to producing nice hardware (and the milestone IS nice, that's why it's worth fighting for an open bootloader) and at least leave the options open on the software side.

you can disagree on that of course, but you shouldn't be surprised if you dig on your own demise in the process...

you can keep shooting the messengers by deleting posts, threads and comments. i won't help you a bit though. word's out, as it stands it will never be never be moto again for me unfortunately, and i will keep my acquaintances stay away as well.

in this league of devices you're not catering to the "dumb" "mass market" customers but rather to the tech-savvy leading-edge opinion leaders, but that's probably just another point you missed.... sad sad sad.

as for the "specific business reason" difference with the droid, i would really love to see where that comes from. that's gotta be the joke of the day.

sorry for all the negativity, i hope it gets you thinking though!

kind regards, an otherwise normally cheerful and happy power user/developer/techie

p.s. deleting posts won't help!

[#18]

I propably don't have to tell you guys, but pushing an App to the device and seeing if it works is called Q/A, not development.

The milestone is useless for app development. And motorola is denying that. We need to put our adbd into superuser mode, get sqlite3 on the phone, and debugging on the device.

Anything not providing that is Q/A, not development. Please stop telling everyone that the milestone is great for development. It is not.  Especially if you have elements that can't be tested outside a device (gps, cell tower reports, current cell id, network connectivity, wifi cell tower searches (just to mention what I am using)).

Regards,

  RT

[#19]

@Lori: The whole idea behind Open Source is progress and development...

"If you are writing applications that use private / internal Android APIs or rely on native functionality not published via the NDK, then you need a phone intended for that level of development."

I'm not saying that the phone should be open to everyone, so that the average user can acciedently brick his/her phone... But there is no reason in my mind, that can explain why you can't open the phone up to us "home-developers"...

I would like to suggest that somewhere in our Motodev profiles, we should be able to confirm that we take responsibility of any damage done to our phones... and after that we should be able to download somekind of tool that either disables the bootloader encrytion, or makes us able to sign our own updates...

Regards

Martin Juhl

[#20]

  Lori Fraleigh , To come back to the first post

"preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years.  This practice is driven by a number of different business factors.  When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so.  We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration."

May I remind you that the Droid IS a Milestone (the name Droid was given to the device by Verizon )

Even Motorolas own press release states so:

"Availability
Italy and Germany will be the first markets in Europe to stock MILESTONE. Further availability will be announced as Motorola continues to expand its Android-based portfolio around the world. For more information please visit www.motorola.com/milestone In North America the device will be known as DROID™."

( http://mediacenter.motorola.com/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=12085&NewsAreaID=2 )

It´s no wonder international Milestone users expected the same ability of flashing non signed ROM images.  Your sentence in the original post can be even be read like "When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the MILESTONE, there is a specific business reason for doing so."

This strengthens my feeling that international Milestone users are beeing discriminated against North American Customers.

Best regards,

Robin Jacobs

PS I'm still willing to forget this whole issue (in fact whole Motorola) if arrangements can be made to send my Milestone back for a full refund although I much prefer my phone is being treated like N.American Milestones in regards to the bootloader.

[#21]

We are not asking for all handsets to boot unsigned images. It is just about the Milestone because we got the same Droid like advertisment and it was widely known that loading unsigned images is possible before the Milestone got released by Motorola. There is no way for App2SD and other really usefull modifications.  Will there ever be an answer to that argument ?

I do not like locking or restricting but can understand the reasons for doing that on mainstream handsets (like Android 1.5 /1.6 Motoblur devices). Like the Droid, Milestone is not a mainstream phone.

Mario Herdlicka

[#22]

Hi,

          just a question about part of your statement that interests me...

"This practice is driven by a number of different business factors.  When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so"

I'm wondering what the specific business reason is?

Regards,

C

[#23]

@Lori, I'm sure you're correct on the figures regarding future phones, but if Motorola released the Droid with the ability to load unsigned images, how hard can it be to just treat the Milestone in exactly the same way? It's the same phone anyway, a pretty rediculous choice.

[#24]

"Truth and Technology will triumph over Bureaucracy and Bull**bleep**".  Embrace the open standards of Anrdroid and allow loading of custom ROMS.  However, don't support users that are using custom ROM's.  Motorola has a chance to be a big player in the PDA phone arena and locking up phones will hurt you in the long run.  Remember, with the N1 you are competing with Google and HTC!  You must be quicker, better, innovative, and open so that your handsets become the choice of somebody like XDA-developers......Forget the iPhone model and app store.  You are waaaaaay tooooo late to even enter that battle.  You must change the game to win... The Droid/Milestone was a great start!!!  However, keep going and build faster and more capable PDAs at the same time keeping the existing phones updated to the latest OS that is appropriate....

I'm in your corner for now but I'm watching Google and HTC, Samsung, etc for the most capable and best supported PDA device....

EV

[#25]

One of the hard parts of any customer-facing role is being unable to please everyone all of the time.  Unfotunately we do not make a "developer phone" today.  Do we want to direct you to buy a phone from someone else?  Of course not.  But the reality is that we do not produce and support such a phone today.

While the Milestone and DROID do share the same hardware (radio aside), the software differences extend beyond the bootloader.  For any given phone / hardware platform, we ship a variety of software configurations depending on the target region and carrier.  The Milestone and DROID have additional differences since the DROID was a 3-way collaboration between Motorola, Verizon, and Google.  There are actually a number of software features available on Milestone that are not available on DROID.

Many have asked, but we are not in a position to disclose the "specific business reasons" behind our decision to secure / not secure a particular handset.  Your input and ideas are valuable and we are having numerous discussions on the issues you have raised.

Regards,

Lori

[#26]

As a PDA power-user I have been very much considering obtaining a Milestone. After reading through these posts and this information I have decided that Motorola does not endorse the Open Platform and community development and therefore I will likely not purchase a Motorola device.

In fact, I am now willing to wait until something better comes from HTC or Google. I am in Canada and was very much under the impression that I would be able to receive community updates and support for this device, but it is obvious that this is not going to be the reality. Like others have said, updates will dwindle and we will be stuck with an out-of-date device. As much as Motorola may make the commitment to offer ongoing support, we all know that this is not a viable option as Motorola will focus efforts on producing better devices and support for the existing devices will discontinue - it is a business reality. 

The Android community is unique and companies should implore it. It lowers your bottom-line cost for users to create and update their phone on an individual basis rather than having a team, paid, and dedicated to producing these updates that will inevitably cease in months and years to come. 

It seems to me that Motorola has been out of the "mobile phone" market for some time and has only re-entered with the Droid/Milestone. It is sad that Motorola chose this approach as it has caused a lot of concern and loss of customer loyalty. As a result, I for one will likely not ever see Motorola as an option when choosing a device and am grateful that I have yet expended my money to support the lock-down concept. In my network of people I am the "tech-go-to-guy" and I can assure you that unless something changes quickly, I will not promote the Motorola brand for android devices. I am a big supporter of the Android platform and I feel very strongly that Motorola has gone against the "spirit-of-openness" that Google has created with the inception of Android. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that Motorola is hearing the biggest concerns. Custom roms and rooting enables features required for developing and everyday use. One of my biggest personal concerns is the lack of ability to activate apps2sd, and other similar functions. In my opinion, this fact makes this device a powerful device, with a devastating lack of storage; enough to make me consider other options. 

You have lost many customers and angered many others over this decision to "lock" down your flagship device. If you are wanting to be a contender in the Android market (which is increasing every day), you will need to keep up with the spirit of agreement that HTC and Google have instilled. I am sad to say that I excited myself over this device just to be letdown. Another reason why I should never have considered switching from the HTC brand. 

Essentially, for power users that own the Milestone, it has become a very expensive paper-weight that does "some" stuff. I love the device, but unfortunately, I will not own one in this state and will ensure that no-one around me owns one either.

[#27]

The least you guys can do is allow us to root our device

[#28]

Dear Lori,

I am very concerned when I read your answer, being an IT professional, my colleagues use to see me playing with my phoneS all the time. They know me, and know they know the XDA forums too and my organization uses Exchange and we migrated from blackberries to ActiveSync phones. During this migration, trust me, 95% of them asked me what to buy and all when for HTC devices because I told them I would customized them and open them to new functions like "tethering".

Few users refused for warranty purposes and I fully understand this choice but all the other ones are so happy to have done the jump. Now I have a phone locked (Thanks Apple... no comment) that do not tether because your company for unknown reasons decided not to put the function (can you explain???????????) I can NOT even uninstall some software I DON'T want like Motnav, I can install app on my SD card (what is the rational?) and I can NOT test my applications...

Motorala, PLEASE wake up !!! And Lorie, open your eyes... the world is moving, Nokia, biggest seller in the world opened its OS, don't lock your users because they will escape with a competitor... You lost me in two days, I already put my phone on CraigsList...

Thanks to read even if you don't listen.

[#29]

Lori, it'd be great to get updates on these discussions you are having. 

Following the htc model, ie, asking for confirmation twice before voiding warranty and leaving a mark by blowing an e-fuse would be trivial for your engineers to implement, and should make all of us happy.

I'm in Argentina, bought the phone one day after release (Dec 11th) and 75(!) days later I still have to turn my phone off and on every 6 hours when on some wifi APs. Calls not ringing is also a common, reported by many users problem that I'm facing, that 2.0.1 seems to have solved.

Matt at the forum has been doing his best trying to handle us, but even he is already embarrassed with the 'soon' word he's been using for over 2 weeks regarding our update...

Also, last week you released the phone for Canada sharing the same radio bands as the LatAm milestone, so the different baseband is no longer an excuse you can use with us for the delays.

Finally, a 2.1 release for LatAm being 'under evaluation' is not acceptable, your phone is as expensive here as everywhere else, most often even more and I find it offensive for your company to treat us like 2nd class citizens.

There's no excuse for keeping us in the dark here, as you've already told all the other regions when to expect the update.

I need to know NOW if you will or will not release 2.1, even if it's in Q3/4, and potential new customers should also know this. If I'd known we'd get a different treatment than everybody else I'm not so sure I'd have bought my phone.

I really hope to get a response from you and a course correction on the direction you took when locking the milestone.

[#30]

Hi Lori,

first of all thanks that you still do care and answer questions. On facebook there are no anwers coming up anymore for instance. So I do hope I am a bit luckier right here. I have got a surprisingly simple question to you and I would greatly appreciate an answer:

How does the signed bootloader comply to the licenses GnuGPL and Apache? Especially GPL tells that every part of the software (which also is the bootloader including the signature in my point of view) has to be published somewhere. The Kernel source code is already published, but what about the bootloader's source code? In regard to Apache & GPL it has to be published also, isn't that correct?

I do hope you still care, thanks!

[#31]

Lori, it'd be great to get updates on these discussions you are having.
Following the htc model, ie, asking for confirmation twice before voiding warranty and leaving a mark by blowing an e-fuse would be trivial for your engineers to implement, and should make all of us happy.
I'm in Argentina, bought the phone one day after release (Dec 11th) and 75(!) days later I still have to turn my phone off and on every 6 hours when on some wifi APs. Calls not ringing is also a common, reported by many users problem that I'm facing, that 2.0.1 seems to have solved.
Matt at the forum has been doing his best trying to handle us, but even he is already embarrassed with the 'soon' word he's been using for over 2 weeks regarding our update...
Also, last week you released the phone for Canada sharing the same radio bands as the LatAm milestone, so the different baseband is no longer an excuse you can use with us for the delays.
Finally, a 2.1 release for LatAm being 'under evaluation' is not acceptable, your phone is as expensive here as everywhere else, most often even more and I find it offensive for your company to treat us like 2nd class citizens.
There's no excuse for keeping us in the dark here, as you've already told all the other regions when to expect the update.
I need to know NOW if you will or will not release 2.1, even if it's in Q3/4, and potential new customers should also know this. If I'd known we'd get a different treatment than everybody else I'm not so sure I'd have bought my phone.

I really hope to get a response from you and a course correction on the direction you took when locking the milestone.

[#32]

I've been researching a new smartphone for a while, and I just wanted to say that the Milestone would have been absolutely perfect - except for the signed bootloader. What piqued my interest about Android over the iPhone/Winmo to begin with was the openness, and being able to load custom ROMs is a fairly big part of that.

I know this has been said countless times in every way imaginable, but thank you, Motorola, for making a device perfect for me and then telling me to buy something else.

[#33]

Hi Motorola

Are you able to talk about what the business reason behind opening the Droid was? If not, are you able to confirm that this is confidential business information that you can't share? We're left wondering otherwise...

The focus of your post implied that the only people who want to install custom ROMs are developers and that these developers should look at a ADP/Nexus. Part of why this is such a big issue is that it's not only Android platform developers who wish to install custom ROMs. The vast majority of those wanting to install custom ROMs don't actually participate in creating custom ROMs and probably don't have the skills to do so. They're just hobbyists with some technical know-how who simply want to customise their phone using work done by others. I really do believe this is a key factor and something that Motorola should consider when making these decisions.

I'd be very grateful if you could reply.

Daniel

[#34]

Hi Lori

Apologies for asking a question you've already answered regarding disclosing the reasoning behind opening the Droid. I hadn't read through all the comments and should have done before posting. If you could reply to my other points I'd really appreciate it though.

I do think you're alienating a larger portion of your userbase than just potential Android platform devs. This is a comparitively small community and I'd agree they should definitely be buying an ADP/Nexus dev phone. The uproar around the custom ROMs for the Milestone is because a large portion of your customers aren't devs, they're just tech savvy users who want to customise their device. I'd say these are still 'consumers', just more demanding ones

Thanks for taking the time to communicate with your customers. It does make a difference.

Daniel

[#35]

I have a question that will likely end up deleted; it seems quite a few posts have been lately.  But here it is nonetheless.

Has MotoDev, or Motorola in general for that matter, considered how much truly creative works you may be missing out on that take advantage of the Milestone's unique hardware qualities by denying the Android community to ability to make custom mods?

Take a look right now at what the community around CyanogenMod is doing with the Nexus One.  Heck, it's quite possible that if the bootloader was unlocked someone might have fixed the MP3 skipping problem that is plaguing the Milestone on both sides of the pond.

And from a purely bottom-line, bean counter point of view Motorola could save a ton of money since every rooted or modded phone would be warranty void; every one would be one less you have to spend on support.

Oh well, I thought I'd get it out there.  Don't know if it will stay out there though.

Sincerely,

A once (and future?) Motorola fan

[#36]

I dont understand why in the world you guys would not want to release the source code and drivers of the Moto CLIQ/DEXT So we can creat roms. PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING 

What is Android?
Android is an operating system (OS) developed for mobile devices. Similar to Windows or Mac operating systems that control desktop and laptop computers, Android is built to control mobile devices.

It’s an open-source platform, meaning consumers can contribute to the development of Android and caters the software to meet their needs and desires – Android gives you the ability to have your cell phone do whatever you want it to.

Why Android?
Google Integration & Thousands Of Apps In The Android Market
Easily Customized & Open-source Encourages Developers
Expandable Memory & Interchangeable Batter

Found this on the NewEgg Website Notice how the second paragraph states that "Android gives you the ability to have your cell phone do whatever you want it to"! How can we do that when you guys are CHOOSING to lockdown the phone to a ridiculous level?! I have been a Motorola customer for quite some time... ever since 2003! And Believe me, i dont believe that there are phones that would last me as long as a Motorola Does, But i have been EXTREMELY dissapointed by the way you guys are taking awayy ALL THE FREEDOM that android was built upon. I dont see how it would hurt or kill you guys to release the source code for the drivers INSIDE the device, like the Radio, and Cpu drivers so we can have THE FREEDOM that android was built on and let us create our ROMs!

[#37]

I agree with just about every post before mine.  To make a long story short, I bought the Cliq I bought because it is stylish, not too big, had a nice me-friendly keyboard and a D-pad.   To be honest though, If I knew this is how moto felt in the beginning, I wouldve bought something bulkier, with no keyboard, or D-pad, that was ugly, just so it could be wide open.  The fact that you will stop thousands of would-be repeat moto owners, tell them to do a U-turn, and literally to go buy an HTC (Which is bad advice for a company trying to make a comeback, especially when everyone will).  Well unfortunatly everyone is doing just that.   

Such a minor thing for moto to overlook, and yet such a huge thing to us out there who want unlocked phones.  It wouldn't hurt users that didn't want to mess with anything.  It'd just make a larger demographic of people who wanted your guys' phones.  Oh well I'm not gonna blab anymore im just gonna toss my Cliq on ebay and get on with looking for a decent keyboarded android to come in the near future...

[#38]

I have a suggestion for a possible solution that might leave both sides happy.

Is it possible to generate an unlock sbf file that is specific to a single phone's IMEI?  If so, couldn't Motorola have a page for those of us wishing to unlock where we would have to enter the IMEI of our phones and download such a one-shot update?  The advantage to this is that the user could be required to accept a waiver of warranty in order to download the sbf and the IMEIs entered could then be used to track those who have waived their warranty.

If the person then bricks their phone and tries to return it, they would be on record and can be refused warranty service at that time.

That way everyone compromises and hopefully everyone is happy.  It might even earn MotoDev some new developers.

Just a thought.

[#39]

@Lori

I'm just going to through this out for you to take back to the people that make the business decisions because I want Motorola to be successful.

Here's a little story for you...

I come from a small city in Minnesota where we built components for Motorola back in the StarTac days when I couldn't even afford a cell phone. Later, a different employer bought me my first phone - a Nokia.  When I decided to buy MY first cell phone, I bought an Moto L6, then an L7 and then a V3.  Why? 1) Support the company that once supported me 2) it was quad-band and I could use it anywhere in the world and flash language packs so I could send text messages to foreign friends.

Times got lean at Motorola and I defected to the iPhone - 3 of them to be exact. I jailbroke and unlocked all of them aware that my warranty was toast - I didn't care.  With Apple's latest lockdowns and the need for iTunes I just gave up. Time for an Android phone.  Now I'm in Germany and I could have finagled a Nexus One, but instead I went through the normal channels to get a Milestone here to support good old Motorola. Much to my disappointment, I learn of the signed bootloader after my purchase.

I know there is some talk of voiding the warranty if we mess with the bootloader - fine with me.  There are 2,048 unlocked iPhones on eBay in Germany as I write.  That is 2,048 iPhones without warranty.  People are willing to accept that - I've sold 3 of them myself.

If you want to run with Google, then you have to keep it open.  Your customers will reward you for it.

[#40]

Deleting posts again, shame on you Moto...

[#41]

Hi @robroy90.  Actually all comments are under moderation and being reviewed according to our user guidelines. That is our policy on the blog due to the # of spammers out there that whenever we do a blog post withiin seconds some bot comes in and spams us. Soo...I have approved your comment and others to let you know we want to hear from our customers and we take all your comments and forward it on to the right team at Motorola. As you know a blog is not the best way to keep track of a threaded discussion but do know we read everything. If you want to keep track of this discussion my suggestion is to get notifications via email as a MOTODEV member. Not forcing you to get an account but in order to get notified and keep track of the comments that is the best way with our community technology.  Have a great day and hope to hear from you soon.

[#42]

First of all, pardon me for my bad english ..

This is my second post, the first one got erased, probably because I said "I want my money back .."

But i guess you know that this bootloader thing is really making us frustrated, especially when you say that we should buy the HTC / Nexus One, it makes me so furious .. you should think what about us who have bought Milestone? and now we can not do what we want with our android handset? sell it back then buy Nexus One?

I am a Milestone seller in my country, I still have a couple units in stock, I bought Milestone from the UK and Hong Kong then I sell it in my country, the sales now stuck, nobody want Milestone anymore and this is not bul**bleep**, try take a look at our community id-android@googlegroups.com and see what the most thing we discuss there (you will see i'm the one who always make tips and trick about Milestone).

One of our telco provider "Indosat" (http://www.indosat. com / android) also sell Milestone but now  people here prefer other android handset..and guess what..just like what you suggest..Nexus One is very high demand..soon Indosat will sale Nexus One too..

I've seen the fall of motorola in my country .. and in singapore this still happened, but after the presence of Verizon Motorola Droid in America, I saw the resurrection of Motorola, therefore I see the Milestone will be a very promising android devices and will be a best seller too ..

but now I highly doubt, because the Milestone is not the Droid, the freedom is very different ...

i just hope you can see what we really want..

thank you...

[#43]

one more thing, if you can make this bootloader free, i can asure you..there will be so many people happy, your facebook fans will be back..with "thank you" comment...and you will be cry because you make your customer happy :-)

[#44]

I bought a milestone - as I heard so much good about Droid. Now I learned that you sold me a car but kept a copy of the keys, I feel a little cheated.

This type of phone appeals to people who are developers and/or people interested in tech. If I was not that kind of person, I would buy a V3 or something that’s just a phone.

I want developers to innovate and grow Android - which helps you sell phones.  As iPhones have many advantages over any Android phone at the moment, Motorola needs to appeal to a wide audience - and get free help where they can!

I would take my milestone back and trade for a Droid - or more than likely - wait for a competitor to ace it with what I now know.

Take a look at XDA Developers – see how many custom roms there are and how much innovation they have. Its organic, smart and full of talent.

Now you have sold me a disabled phone, its even more frustrating as its obvious with Android 2.1, your interest is selling more phones than supporting people who bought already. I will remember that in a few months time.   

Its a shame you have taken a hard stance, I thought Motorola just got their groove back, but I was wrong.

You are damaging the reputation of Motorola. Please reconsider an update that allows choice to run free.

[#45]

Good for you Randy Ksar (DJ_Ksar), you're not deleting posts after all or at least not most of them.

Can you tell us what the chances are of someone actually reading them though for more than just spam or inflammatory content?

I would imagine now Motorola is beginning to see what a hornet's nest they have stirred up with this decision to lock the Milestone bootloader.  Do you understand though, that we will not be so patient waiting for a decision as we are for the 2.1 update (that's sarcasm by the way, our patience has run thin there also).

[#46]

Hello Lori:

I think nobody is asking for a developer phone. 

Is the Droid a developer phone? It can't be a developer phone since you're saying "we do not produce and support such a phone today"

We are asking for the same level of freedom the Droid gives to its users. We want a bootloader that doesn't check signatures, and we want it only for the Milestone.

Thanks for reading,

Norberto

[#47]

@Lori     "One of the hard parts of any customer-facing role is being unable to please everyone all of the time".   Now that leaves me with one simple question:

How exactly opening up the bootloader upset ANY customer?  

Its not like you need to compromise,   I am vary hard pressed to imagine anyone complaining that one phone now have more power / options / usability / development opportunities / community support  etc...    

Think about it, if a customer goes to the trouble of rooting searching for images etc, it is because something bothers that costumer and he wants to change it, if he cant change it it will frustrate him, EXPECIALY when another "club" can do it,  and for those that are not bothered  by features or don’t have the technical expertise to do anything about it  will simply remain ignorant about what bootloaders can do for him and nothing is going to change.  

Naturally no one here expect that Motorola provide support for modified merchandise, if you root, boot shoot, loot your device you LOSE WARRANTY, and now it is a matter of choice. and choice is always good.   

@Lori     "One of the hard parts of any customer-facing role is being unable to please everyone all of the time".   Now that leaves me with one simple question:
How exactly opening up the bootloader upset ANY customer?  

Its not like you need to compromise,   I am vary hard pressed to imagine anyone complaining that one phone now have more power / options / usability / development opportunities / community support  etc...    

Think about it, if a customer goes to the trouble of rooting searching for images etc, it is because something bothers that costumer and he wants to change it, if he cant change it it will frustrate him, EXPECIALY when another "club" can do it,  and for those that are not bothered  by features or don’t have the technical expertise to do anything about it  will simply remain ignorant about what bootloaders can do for him and nothing is going to change.  

Naturally no one here expect that Motorola provide support for modified merchandise, if you root, boot, shoot, loot your device you LOSE WARRANTY, and now it is a matter of choice. and choice is always good.   

[#48]

Wow, that's disappointing. The branding message here in Canada very much capitalized on DROID marketing in the US, and very obviously makes people think they're the same.

I was just about to get one from Telus, but I'm afraid that's put me right off.

[#49]

Can I offer a possible explanation for the situation we're in? If my guess is anywhere near what's really going on, then Motorola can't comment, but take what you will from the fact Motorola have approved this post to be shown on this blog...

Perhaps Motorola's hands are somewhat tied in that the reason for why custom ROMs are not possible lies in the details of the commercial agreement between Motorola and the other parties involved (carriers, Google, etc). These sorts of agreements usually come with a non-disclosure clause, meaning Motorola is legally bound not to disclose the details of the agreement. Once Motorola have entered in to such an agreement, their hands are tied, even if, internally, the backlash from users is causing them to rethink their choice to agree to the terms meaning the phone is closed to custom ROMs. Although the Droid is technically very similar, the US is a very different market, with different laws and different parties involved in the release of the Droid.

I'm not trying to say that Motorola are blameless, I'm just offering a possible explanation for why we are where we are. Any comments welcome.

[#50]

That's an interesting thought Daniel but unlikely for Canada's Milestone at any rate.  Telus, the Canadian carrier that sells the Milestone also carries the HTC Hero and that phone has been rooted and unlocked quite some time ago.  I would think that if Telus required Motorola to lock the Milestone they would have required the same from HTC with regards to the Hero.

I'm not saying you're wrong but it seems unlikely.

[#51]

@Daniel

That applies probably to software,  as for opening the bootloader, that is ether a good thing or a bad thing,  it has allot of upside and vary little downside (as to modified phones hitting support)  and that kind o policy is not one that ultimately will interfere with carriers as they will send problematic phones to motorola authorized support,  since you can 3g and theater with an unmodified phone (that being one thing that could potentially hit carriers)  it just insane from motorola not to leak  the RSA codes.