The legal fight between GeoHot and Sony is full on and it is getting uglier day by day. Last month, GeoHot was ordered by the
presiding judge to hand over his HDD. However, Sony claimed that the hacker tampered with the HDD before delivering it for inspection and it did not stopped at that. As apparently, Sony also claimed that GeoHot has fled the country and is in South America.
Wide coverage of the news led GeoHot to come out of his hibernation and dispel the rumors of fleeing. While he accepted that he is indeed in South America, he clarified that he is not absconding and is actually on his spring break. And in case, you'd donated to GeoHot's legal defense fund, then do not worry as he also said, "Rest assured that not a dime of legal defense money would ever go toward something like this." We do not condone hacking, but we certainly applaud the whizkid for his integrity.
With ever increasing R&D expenditure, it is of paramount importance for a company to save its Intellectual Property. But with growing litigation, it is the need of the hour to rationalize the IP laws. Electronics industry will do itself well if it removes unnecessary garden walls and let its users decide what they want to do with their device, albeit within the predefined limits. The companies may worry about their revenue stream, but the success of Android has already shown us that the iron-fist control is not the only way to make money. After all, if I am given reasonable amount of freedom to customize my device, I would be less willing to risk an illegal hack and brick my contraption. However, openness is still a distant dream and in the meantime, let's wait to see how things unfold for GeoHot.