Dear Sirs,
I have used a HTC phone in some form since around the turn of the century. I first modded a phone when i had the Dopod D810- WM phone. Then, as i loved the quality of phones HTC produced i bought a G1. I also modded and hacked the hell out of this phone as well. A short time later i purchased a HTC Magic, followed by the Nexus One and then the G2 and now the HD2 (running android). I am sure you see the pattern here. Everyone of these phones has had a relatively open bootloader allowing the hacking community to improve upon these great phones. As such i was always willing to recommend HTC phones to my friends, family and coworkers, all who come to me for advice on what devices to purchase.
Android is an open source project and hTC has grown in leaps and bounds on the back of android in the last few years. Much of this should be attributed to the work done in developing the AOSP thru hacked HTC phones. I find it disturbing that HTC can be a member of the open handset alliance (http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html in case you had forgotten about that) and yet start to lock down their phones in such a way that is directly opposite to what we all thought the OHA was meant to stand for.
Now that HTC are locking down their bootloaders i find it hard to recommend another HTC phone to anyone i know (especially with Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson having open bootloaders- with Motorola soon to follow)- are you seeing a trend here as well? People flock to these phones as they are open- if they wanted a locked phone they would go for an iphone. I will certainly not be buying another HTC phone while this policy is in place and will steer all i know away from HTC at the same time. Personally i will be buying the SGSII instead of the sensation due to this policy and it would take a big about face by HTC to restore my faith in the once hacker/android-friendly company.
Do not take your marketshare for granted. Where do people go for advice on what devices they want? Their friends who are hackers, nerds, geeks like us.
A suitable compromise would be to follow in the path of the Nexus One. Allow unlocking of the device, but mark it as such once it has been unlocked, so you know if it has been altered. Doing so would also remove the need for dangerous exploits to be written, which while they give us the access we want, exposes all of your users to dangerous malware. There are many members of the hacker community willing to work with you to arrive at a solution acceptable to both parties. Paul O'Brien from Modaco has written several times he has ideas that you may find acceptable.
Until you allow us greater access to the devices we own, I promise to purchase no more HTC products.
Sincerely,
A former HTC enthusiast,