[Crespyl]

Allowing the owner of the device root access doesn't necessarily break the security model. It just means that the user can grant additional privileges to specific apps the owner has decided to trust. Every other app still has to abide by the restrictions.

The fact that Android complains and tells any app that asks whether the owner actually, you know, owns the device they paid for is an implementation detail.

A Linux distribution that adopts an Android style security model could easily still provide the owner root access while locking down less trusted apps in such a way that the apps can't know or care whether the device is rooted.

[palata]

IMHO, I should be able install the OS I want on the hardware I paid for. What should be illegal is to technically prevent me from installing a different OS, because I paid for that hardware and I should own it.

But that does not mean that all OSes should be open source. I think it's fine for iOS to be proprietary, but there should be enough information for someone to write an entire alternative OS that runs on iPhone. I think it should be illegal to prevent that (is it called tivoisation?).

All that to say, I don't believe that having root on my Android system is a right. But being able to install a system that gives me root should be one. If that system exists, that is.