Microsoft To Hacker: Have A Go

"20-something firmware magician GeoHot (George Hotz) has already been sued by Sony for jailbreaking the PlayStation 3, and caused a major stir in the iPhone dev community when he released limera1n. So what next for the ambitious young hacker? How about taking a stab at Windows Phone 7?"

Despite temporarily taking down the Chevron WP7 tool that allowed sideloading of apps, Microsoft continues to be less than draconian about shutting out would-be hackers. In this instance, it's almost a dare to hacker GeoHot (mugshot above), with an offer of a free development device thrown in for good measure. I hope MS stays the course on this - I for one ain't that keen on the gated marketplace concept, especially since half the countries WP7 has been introduced in still have no official access to Windows Marketplace.