Motorola has thankfully reiterated their plans to work to provide developers deeper access to their devices by allowing them to unlock their bootloaders. Unfortunately, that’s all they did – no timeline or other pertinent details were given outside of the fact that it’ll be launched in “late 2011”. Here’s the full quote for your consideration:

“In terms of your question – we completely understand the operator requirement for security to the end user, and as well, want to support the developer communities desire to use these products as a development platform. It is our intention to enable the unlockable/relockable bootloader currently found on Motorola XOOM across our portfolio of devices starting in late 2011, where carriers and operators will allow it.”

The response comes from the efforts of the thousands of souls who’ve signed a petition over at Groubal asking Motorola to follow through with their word. I imagine they were also pressured by an embarrassing response to an innocent question they posed to their fans on Facebook a couple of weeks back.

And, to be honest, we’re still not all that happy about Motorola’s efforts. “Late 2011” is such a ways away from now and they say that ultimately the carriers will decide whether or not bootloaders remain locked. Fortunately most carriers don’t seem to mind (we know there are tons of Samsung and HTC phones with the freest of free bootloaders) so we’ll see if Motorola’s just blowing smoke once that time comes. [via AusDroid]