<i>"People must have the right to control the software running on devices they own," said SFLC counsel Aaron Williamson. "That right is essential to the continued development of free and open source software and is foundational to our privacy, security, and freedom, online and off."</i><p>He nails it completely.
I had never heard of the SFLC before, so this summary from their filing helped:<p>"SFLC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal services organization dedicated to protecting and advancing
free software. SFLC provides pro bono legal representation to developers and educates the
public about legal issues affecting free software development. SFLC represents a number of
prominent developers and organizations that write and distribute free software directed at
personal computing devices, including the Free Software Foundation, which develops and distributes GNU, a collection of free software operating system utilities; the Debian project, which distributes a complete free software operating system based on GNU and Linux; and the Foundation for Free Multimedia Technology, which develops free software commonly used for media playback."<p>Overall this seems to clarify the legal distinction of installing a legally-obtained OS on all electronic devices you own. Jailbreaking of mobile phones was ruled legal in 2009--but that only covers a small subset of electronics which are becoming increasingly locked down.
Nice, but I wonder about ways to circumvent this. If locking down users is central to a company's business can they force users into accepting that they "rent" the devices instead of "buying"?
This sounds great but I think it is worth considering two things:<p>1) I'm not aware of any persecution or prosecution of any private citizen for modifying their own device. For instance I've never heard of Apple seeking legal action against an iPhone owner who jailbroke their phone. Or heck, even against any of the groups who publish jailbreaks.<p>2) This would not force any manufacturer or carrier to provide support or assistance in modifying device software.<p>As a point of legal clarification I think it sounds great but I think there would be little practical impact.