What are the limitations to roboRIO modifications?

[Thad House]

Originally Posted by EricH

You can do exactly what the Manual says you can. This would be R45 (image and firmware that MUST be used) and R55 (programming user programmable code).

Conversely, you are NOT allowed to make any other changes (if you want to stay competition legal). I would regard a different OS as being a change, and an illegal one. Not that I'd know how to spot it, but I'm sure someone would.

Note, though, that I'm only commenting on legality, not on ability to do something.

Since the kernel comes in the image, I would agree with this. Changing the OS and the kernel would not be allowed.

For installing packages, and recompiling the JDK, I would say both of those are perfectly fine. The JDK does not come with the image, so if doing either of those things was illegal, both the Python and Java implementations would be illegal, and we know that both of those are legal.