The problem has always seen to be that Archos is great at designing hardware, and terrible at writing software. That's why this move (for the most part) is being hailed as a step forward. This gives the community the possibility to make great software for these devices.

While your on the subject of the 605 though, that hardware is two generations old. They have completely abandoned software updates for it. Why doesn't Archos produce a similar developer firmware for that generation? With their recent history, they could use all the good-will they can get.

It's important to point out that there is a difference between the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (IT) and the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet (IMT). The Archos 5 IT is the seventh generation and is the device that runs Android natively. This SDE firmware has not been released for that generation. This Special Developers Firmware was only released for the sixth generation, their older hardware.

Somebody in Archos marketing should definitely be fired.

If you read about the details of the SDE firmware update, it flash-locks the boot0 and boot1 (bootstrap stages) sections of flash, as well as a recovery kernel. So you there is nothing you can do while running the SDE firmware that will permanently brick your Archos device.

Removing the DRM makes sense, and good riddance, says I! But saying it voids your warranty seems like a cop-out to me, especially since this generation has had a pretty high failure rate.

Actually, since they lock the boot0 and boot1 (bootstrap stages) and the recovery kernel, it would be very difficult for somebody to permanently brick their Archos device. As for overheating, I imagine the processor has thermal protection that would keep it from frying itself.

Removing the DRM makes sense, and good riddance, says I!

Having lived nearly 1/4 of my life outside the US, I can tell you that in my experience, you are completely wrong. Most people I have met and talked with, would still jump at the chance to live in the US. And yes, that is including Europe.

Sure there was a time there where it was cool to be anti-US, but that seems to be passing.

Paparazzi is an amazing system that is very powerful and very flexible. It is also completely open source and open hardware, generally considered a plus around here.

There are a couple of vendors that have popped up over the last couple of years. They have "kits" with everything you need to get flying. You still get the experience of putting it all together and learning to program the thing to do what you want, but you don't have to learn SMD soldering to get there.

The list can be found at: http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/Get_Hardware

** Full disclosure - I operate one of the webstores on that list

Try not running Vista.