

Sign the Petition to Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal - skipper86
http://iclarified.com/27011/sign-the-petition-to-make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal

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logn
Why? So we can get a vaguely worded response from a staffer which dodges any
commitments? I think petitions accomplish very little. If we thought they do
anything, wouldn't we look at the petitions to secede as very serious? Think
how lightly we take those? That's how the government sees all of them.

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d4mi3n
Generally, effective petitions need to do two things:

1\. Put pressure on a specific person or group of people to make a specific
change.

2\. Bring attention of an issue to a larger audience (i.e.: the press, a
congressmen's constituents, etc)

Having those things goes a long way to making these online petitions useful,
but without them you'd just end blowing around a lot of hot air.

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logn
1\. No pressure is brought (Obama's not even up for re-election, but I
wouldn't feel differently if he were) 2\. Usually the only people who know
about a petition are already aware of the issue (case in point, unlocking
cellphones petition on HN)

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aortega
Not sure about that. What about buying phones from a vendor that doesn't locks
them instead?

That said, if I buy something I should be able to do whatever I want with it.

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Patrikvo
I don't get why those cellphones are locked in the first place. I have a
carrier subsidized phone (Belgian carrier) and this is a phone exactly the
same as you could buy on your own. I have a two year contract and if I would
cancel it, I'll have to pay the residual value of the phone.

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Geee
It's possible to buy non-contract locked-to-carrier phones, too. Often those
come with prepaid or pay-what-you-use plans. That's when they want to keep you
on the carrier, because they want to keep you spending on it.

Some carriers indeed sell non-locked phones when there's a multi-year contract
already.

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shmerl
Why not to propose a petition to drop the whole DMCA? Or rather contact your
congressmen to do it. Except that there is something useful in it actually -
like removal of secondary liability from ISPs. However all the
"anticircumvention" provisions there are sheer garbage.

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dinkumthinkum
Why? I'm not sure I understand the point of any of these petitions. I mean
good for people to do something I guess but these petitions seem largely
irrelevant. You'd probably be better off calling your congressperson.

