[weareallcowards]

For what it's worth, the US Air Force has been burned in the past by having game consoles locked down.

They bought a bunch of PS3s to make a cluster back when the machines could run Linux, but Sony removed the ability to run a custom OS when people started to actually use it.

I think the military got a special contract for continued support, but why shouldn't that be a feature that is expected of any complex computing device?

People do also modify their car and motorcycle ECUs, it's called "chipping". Again, this is expected of a product that you purchased and own, and it's still illegal to operate vehicles that don't pass local environmental and safety inspections.

[Jtsummers]

USAF wasn't the only one, universities also bought PS3s as that was the only feasible way to get a Cell processor cluster going.