Well, now many people think it's immoral to tell vendors about local-root holes in the Linux kernel, because it could keep people from jailbreaking their Android phones. So there's definitely an effect on Linux.
What you mean is getting root access to the linux system that android is based on. Which is a cool hack, but not similar to a jail brake.
It's not disingenuous, just (perhaps overly) pedantic.
That is my understanding of it anyway.
Can you boot your own OS (sans Java VM) on an Android device? How easy is that to do?
Many Android phones can also run various other distros using chroot.