Well I've heard about the battle between Sony and geohotz but I really haven't come across any information about a jailbroken PS3.

What exactly are the pros and cons of it? I want to know because I'd like to convince a friend from not getting their ps3 jailbroken.

Can you play new games? I'm assuming you can't or maybe shouldn't go online? Are there added utilities to a jailbroken ps3? Do you have to update it regularly as well?

Anyone care to shed some light?

Pros- You get to enjoy emulators such as Snes9x, fbanext (In HD), etc, probably ps1 backups in the future.

          If you are a pirate, you can get the newest game before the release date, usually a week, or two

         LINUX FTW, soon there will be a much better OtherOS

Cons- You won't get PSN although they have been someways to log into it.

           Void warranty

You get to play 20 year old games.

*cough* backups.

pro: You can play downloaded ps3 games

Con: you cant go on psn

jailbreaking your ps3 gets you..

• the ability to play illegal copies of games
• the duty to defend jailbreaking a ps3 because theoretically you could be using it for something other than playing illegal copies of games even though that's the only meaningful feature jailbreaking offers.

Pirate games is the main factor. Really people how many of the people that jail break there PS3 are going to use linux and emulators, an small minority when really they are going to use it to pirate games and use that small minority case to defend the jail break. 

They broke the terms and conditions they signed. George Hotz can be sued for such mistakew of not reading 

Jailbreaking a PS3 gives you the title as "cheap ass".  Depending on your definition you can view that as being a pro or con.

jailbreaking will get you no respects from me.

How about understanding WHY someone does something before passing judgment on them?

My take would be, if they jailbreak to pirate, they are jerks.  However, if the goal is to do homebrew stuff, emulate and more, then why would one have no respect for that?  People who homebrew stuff get respect from me personally.