> IMO the way this should work is that Google can make their software however they want provided they don't do anything to stop me from changing it to work the way I want.

That's exactly how it is. You're free to get your soldering iron out, or your debugger and reverse engineer anything you want. I don't mean to argue unfairly, but all we're talking about here is the relative ease with which you can do what you want to do. How easy do they have to make it?

As for their software, as delivered, there are literally an infinite number of ways that it stops you from changing it. Maybe you want everything in Pig Latin, or a language you made up yourself. Do they have to design around this desire? Do they have to make this easy to do?