What is 'root'?

[minzer]

I am confused with this, what does it do to your phone? why do people do it?

and why do so much ppl manually download a new firmware like 2.3 by themselves without waiting for the carrier to provide it to them when the time comes? i'm just wondering, although i dont have my own android phone yet, and i am new to this android stuff.

 

[Deleted User]

gives you root access so you can do things like install new roms and kernals, but you really should just do a search for it. 2.2 was leaked long before carriers wanted to release it, it was faster and generally better so people wanted it sooner rather than later. Isn't that kind of obvious? people are impatient, including me