Sure they needed to enforce their copyright, but they didn't have to send their flying monkey lawyer minions after a high profile community developer.

They could have worked with the developer community on a workable compromise that wouldn't interfere with the mod-rom community but would allow users to use their existing licensed software.

The real issue is they didn't try to work with the community for a win-win solution instead they did the evil thing and went for a solution that benefits google to the detriment of their users and developers.

This begs the question, could a functional Maemo rom be made for the G1 as an alternative to Cyanogen??

Bottom line most developers are going to care less about why google is sending lawyers after their community than the fact that they may have to deal with that crap if they develop for Android. Since there are groups producing similar mods to Windows Mobile firmwre, this Cease and Desist has the potential to make the open source mod community around android less vibrant than the community around the Microsoft's closed source OS. Which is a real shame.

If Google doesn't do some rapid damage control they're liable to find their development community moving over to other Open Source phone OSes that don't send lawyers after their development community.