Exactly the middle ground, but it's a shame so much has to be reverse-engineered due to lack of documentation. It's quite a contrast from the Apple II, which came complete with schematics and a ROM listing. Obviously, today's computers are nowhere near as simple, but I hate seeing more and more about our systems becoming jealously guarded secrets.

Nonetheless, a half-step like this is vastly better than the locked bootloaders, jailbreaking, and outright hostility of the smartphone/tablet/console world.