Like Android devices? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snide either. I just get a little tired of these arguments when it comes to smartphones and tablets. Every modern smartphone and tablet that I know of comes with some form of "proverbial handcuffs" to varying degrees. Whether it's jailbreaking or rooting, there's no difference.
Official bootloader unlocks [1] are different and this is exactly why. If the devices you care about have official unlocks, you're not personally affected by this DMCA exception (no matter what you want to do to your device software). If they don't, there's some DMCA-defined circumvention along the way to some things you might want to do and you should pay close attention to this particular rulemaking...
[1] Nexus devices, most Sony Ericsson phones, many HTC phones, soon to include the ASUS Transformer Prime, ...
