I believe primary argument for not shipping rootable devices is security. For any device without a passcode, root access means all the user's data is trivially accessible to anyone with physical access to the phone. Of course, the downsides to this trade-off are the things you have listed below.
However the devtools team has come up with a improvement for this situation for this for 2.2. Bug 1100964 enable “System App” debugging via a process which wipes sensitive data from the device before enabling a “root-like” mode. While this isn’t exactly the same as “root” in an android sense, it does give the user root level access to their device via devtools. - Paul On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 7:02 AM, Justin O'Kelly <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Ralph, Thank you for your email. We would certainly want to review the B2G's teams thoughts on this next and then help you respond with language that will work equally well for users and, if they see it, press. Justin On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Ralph Daub <[email protected]> wrote: Hi PR and B2G teams, I'm Ralph Daub, and I work with the User Success team, focusing on Firefox OS support. A user in the SUMO forums has made very specific questions about why the commercial device that he purchased does not come rooted, and I'm hoping to get some assistance on how to approach answering it: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1042307 In the past, I was able to deflect many of these types of questions. However, this user is asking specific questions to which I do not have an answer to: Why "non-developer" devices come crippled (not-rooted), non-developers don't have rights for manipulating with own device? Why Mozilla participating on delivery crippled (not-rooted) device? Or why Mozilla recommended crippled devices on their websites? I have stored lot of sms/mms in my Firefox OS "non-devel" phone, how can backup it? (to SD card, to Computer ...) I read some how-tos but all failed because they need root access. This has been an ongoing issue that I've brought up in the past, and I consider it a sensitive topic. I believe that non-rooted devices go against Mozilla's manifesto Principle #4: "Individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional." Using the LG Fireweb device as an example: The device does not come rooted and LG will not be releasing an update. Users were effectively stuck on version 1.1 from the moment they purchased the device. No updates means that the users will not be receiving any security fixes available in future versions of the OS. Additionally, there is no way for users to manually root the device - a workaround that would allow them to manually install new versions of the OS. This is not the first time that Firefox OS users and contributors have asked this question and it won't be the last - so I'm hoping to get direction on how to approach these questions, from a PR-perspective, from a product perspective, from a legal perspective. I am open to listening to any insights that we might have on this. Please feel free to reply-all, or reach out to me directly via email, IRC, or vidyo. Thanks in advance, - Ralph _______________________________________________ dev-b2g mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-b2g
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