In a move that will surely only help move more Windows Phone 7 handsets, Microsoft have met with the team behind the WP7 Jailbreak, Chevron, and the results appear to be positive.
Writing on their blog yesterday, Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh, and Long Zheng have revealed what they can (outside of the NDA they voluntarily signed) about the 2 days of meetings, and are “genuinely excited” about what lays in store for the platform.
They are now working “with Microsoft towards long-term solutions that support mutual goals of broadening access to the platform while protecting intellectual property and ensuring platform security.”
As a nice bonus, the three of them were given non-production ASUS E600 development devices, on which to weave their magic.
Note that, while a future WP7 update will fix the bug that allowed the ChevronWP7 unlocker tool to work — and thus render it useless — the guys are collaborating with Microsoft to create an “interim solution that will continue to support homebrew developments after the update.”
In short, Microsoft are doing their best to support both the interests of IP holders, and the interests of the homebrew community.
This approach seems to be paying off, too, with multi-platform hacker Geohot going out and buying a Windows Phone 7 handset. Or, at least he would have, had the head of WP7 development, Brandon Wilson, not offered him a free one.
[via Redmond Pie]