The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will require all phones and other mobile devices to be sold unlocked. Existing devices must be unlocked for free upon request, starting December 1st:
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that as of December 1, 2017, all individual and small business wireless service customers will have the right to have their cellphones and other mobile devices unlocked free of charge upon request. In addition, all newly purchased devices must be provided unlocked from that day forward.
As well, updates to the trial period will allow customers who are unhappy with their service to cancel their contract within 15 days and return their device in near-new condition at no costs, as long as they have used less than half their monthly usage limits.
Definition of SIM locking and regulations by country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @01:28AM
The former two because of the GPL, and the latter because fuck proprietary drivers.
I could care less about the userspace, but being unable to rebuild the necessary drivers to use a piece of hardware on a non-proprietary operating system is ludicrous in this day and age.