[dagw]

virtually everyone purchases their Android devices through their carrier, locked to whatever software that carrier has approved.

Virtually everyone _in the US_.

[thought_alarm]

Cell phone manufacturers must go through the exact same software approval process with their European carriers as with their North American carriers.

Except for Apple, of course. Their customers can download and install an update directly from Apple as soon as it's released. Apple's the only one who's allowed to do that. Android, on the other hand, is no different than BlackBerry.

[biafra]

Wrong.

I installed all the updates on my Milestone after downloading them from the Motorola website. Mostly because OTA didn't work for me.

And on my Nexus One I built Froyo myself from source and use it ever since.

How do I do that with a Blackberry?