I hope it is and he deserves those digs. If I was in his situation I would have done exactly the same, I would settle and run home crying to avoid being financially destroyed forever, but for him to solicit donations under the guise of doing good... and then do the opposite, it's ridiculous. He should be ashamed and he deserves any negativity he takes for this.
Hotz has said all along that any leftover donations would go to the EFF. If he used part of those funds to get good lawyers, and those lawyers told him that his case couldn't be won in a way that would strengthen the right to jailbreaking, the the right thing for Hotz to do was settle ASAP and pass along the leftovers to the EFF.
How would the typical Hotz donor feel if he fought the case all the way, only to win on a technicality that didn't establish any meaningful precedent that could protect future hackers?
EDIT: Hotz also took donations for a duration of two days before he stopped, deciding that he had enough to cover short-term legal expenses, and he didn't want to have too much money lying around in case Sony won.
Hotz claimed he would not settle (unless very specific things were done, which haven't been), he took donations when this was the understanding. I have seen multiple people complaining that they donated because he wasn't going to settle, they wanted to support his fight for "justice".
He settled.
Whether or not the money goes to the EFF is irrelevant.
"What if SCEA tries to settle?
Lets just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it. It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it. I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted."
