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Originally Posted by Ankh
If the law takes a stance that a device can be crafted to prevent its use for different purposes, the availability of the hardware for open source applications would be degraded to products that are sold as development platforms.
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I'm pretty sure you'll find the the terms of use of pretty much all such devices already do prevent this. Eg, anyone who buys a Kindle agrees that:
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No Reverse Engineering, Decompilation, Disassembly, or Circumvention. You may not modify, reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Kindle or the Software, whether in whole or in part, create any derivative works from or of the Software, or bypass, modify, defeat, or tamper with or circumvent any of the functions or protections of the Kindle or Software or any mechanisms operatively linked to the Software, for example, by augmenting or substituting any digital rights management functionality of the Kindle or Software.
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and that, if you break the above:
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Termination. Your rights under this Agreement will automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term of this Agreement. In case of such termination, you must cease all use of the Software...
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That's the one I'm most familiar with, but pretty much all devices have something similar. That's a legal contract that you, as a buyer, are freely and willingly entering into.