The creation of Android in its entirety is on the basis of its open source nature however in the interest of anti-competitive behaviour and the ability in many cases to charge erroneous extra fees for services already paid for i.e. flat rate data packages, companies have been allowed to lock out hardware with encrypted bootloaders and complex anti root priveledge mechanisms. It is my belief that these mechanisms violate the core principles of open source architecture and serve only to hamper innovation.
The locking of bootloaders and removal of easy SU access simply removes the consumers choice, and serves as no proven deterrent to piracy as most software packages are readily available from source for anyone to compile and install through sideload.