Rootless just became worse. Do this:
xattr /System
you'll see an attribute com.apple.rootless being set.
Yes, you can't remove it.
And that means, for example, if you want to modify something inside, you can't. Like, repointing your JVM to some other?
Setting rootless via nvram does not help.
Booting from another partition helps.
Apple, please, could you just get out of my way when I want to do something on the device that I own? I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't want you to patronize me in getting in my way - like, forcing an ITunes library to be in one directory, etc. I'd like to have a switch that says "let me do it."
I know. That switch is called Linux. Which I happened to then resort to yesterday as some Java program I needed didn't come up on OSX.
There was this thinkgeek T-Shirt "Got root?"
I suggest to do one "Got root? No. Got Apple."