I ran Pwnagetool on my iPod Touch because I needed a secure shell (SSH) client for use on my wireless LAN. There is no cellular radio in an iPod Touch, so unlocking doesn't enter the picture. The tool is easy. Cydia pointed me directly to the open source package I needed, which turned out to equip the iPod Touch with an SSH server as well. Yup. The iPhone open sourcers can run background processes on your iPhone. It's fun to SSH into an iPod and run a shell session, but I found reaching out from the iPod Touch to my servers far more useful.

Apple's 2.0.1 firmware update accomplishes what hackers had claimed Apple couldn't do: It relocks an iPhone to AT&T. The original boast was predicated on the fact that through all of its prior updates, Apple had never updated the baseband (cellular radio) firmware. Well, 2.0.1 breaks this tradition, and it breaks unlocking.

Apple's iPhone 2.0.1 firmware also breaks iPhone open source development. My iPod Touch, which never made any trouble for AT&T or Apple, and never cost any App Store vendor a dime in lost sales, won't run Unix apps any more. I'm back to hauling a notebook around when just my iPod Touch would do.

Maybe the iPhone open source community will hack the iPhone open again. In the meantime, it's still possible to operate an iPhone or iPod Touch with open source jailbreak by avoiding the 2.0.1 firmware update, but as it does with iTunes, Apple is adept at turning voluntary updates into a practical necessity by making related products dependent on the latest update.

There is an amicable way out of this. The best thing for all concerned would be for Apple to enable iPhone 2.0 open source development and the running of unsigned applications (such as shell or Python scripts), but only for device owners who explicitly consent to it. I'm all for protecting users from unwittingly welcoming nonpedigreed software into their iPhones. I'll be big about it and set aside the fact that an Apple-issued pedigree doesn't make software run any better.

An open source iPhone community benefits Apple by turning the iPhone into a platform in the Mac sense of the term, and this isn't at odds with Apple's App Store venture. Yes, iPhone unlockers spoiled the party for everybody. But Apple can lock out the unlockers while letting the iPhone open source party go on.