Well, just to start things off on that clean legalese slate: JAMM does not condone piracy. But where do we draw the line here?

Microsoft is starting to lean harder on XDA Devs and requesting that the cooked ROMs on the site (as well as its mirror sites) be removed. Cooked ROMs can either upgrade WinMo firmware or repair certain bugs that have been left in current firmware. Microsoft probably see this as taking away from new device sales, and they’re leaning on technicalities to get the job done. It’s pretty dirty, in my opinion.

The thing is, as WMExperts points out, these same cooked ROMs are what inspire a lot of loyalty in the WinMo community. You can jailbreak an iPhone, but it pales in comparison to the tweaking you can do to a WinMo ROM. .

The JAMM team isn’t completely on the same page here. Some are quite happy with XDA Devs in general, but draw the line at cooked or ported ROMs and don’t condone their use or creation because it is piracy (technically or otherwise). Personally, I don’t see  a huge problem with upgrading an older generation device with newer software — especially if there’s no way to get that new software other than a cooked ROM. My Axim x51v is significantly more sluggish than my HTC TyTN, despite the Axim being a much more powerful machine. My HTC TyTN came with WM6 while my Axim is stuck on WM5, and Dell provided me with no options for upgrading to the faster OS even though the release was just one year later.

Microsoft could update their mobile OS to receive OTA (over-the-air) updates just like Android, but they seem to believe waiting for manufacturers and carriers to update things for people is better. There could be a lot more legal issues around why this is the case, but if Android can do it (and Android is meant to run on a lot of different devices, just like WinMo) then I don’t see any good excuses for Microsoft. Even if Microsoft asked for a fee like Apple does with iPod Touch firmware upgrades, at least there would be a way to upgrade older tech to newer software.

Going after XDA Devs like this is probably a legal obligation, but there’s a deeper problem here: Windows Mobile has to become more flexible in terms of providing updates to its users.  I’m not saying all the cooked ROMs will go away if  things change, but I’m sure a lot of ‘pirates’ would gladly dispose of their eyepatches if MS gave them another way of ROMing the seven seas (bwahaha).

[news from WMExperts, pic source here]

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5. More On The O2 Xda Flame