What if some future Snowden finds himself boxed in and looking for a place to drop the dime on something important? Highly unlikely, but why close that avenue? As a well known outlet to the tech world, why would /. want to close the door to the whistle blower? This speaks to a higher calling -- the possibility that someone might want to spill something important in this forum, and to maintain his/her anonymity. I have difficulty imagining such a scenario, but you/we/they should at least keep the door open to such a possibility. It would be a shame to do otherwise.

This creature from Redmond makes some good points. But Redmond is weak. Windows phones are the laughing stock of the literati. Dumping on MS is socially acceptable. But, tell me, how does "Do no evil" hold up in this scenario? If Redmond is prepared to swallow its pride(iness) and do its best to comply to Google's past objections, then -- objectively speaking -- Google should let them in the door. Google, don't become the thing that you hate. Play nice, kids!

I've got this thing called a spiral bound notebook...

I call mine a PAA - Personal Analog Assistant