Reader generated a disproportionate media outcry because it was such a great service for news junkies - and reporters in general tend to be news junkies. The re

Reader generated a disproportionate media outcry because it was such a great service for news junkies - and reporters in general tend to be news junkies. The response was greatly disproportionate when compared to say, the shutdown of Posterous or even other Google service shutdowns over the years... I suspect because of human nature, where reporters assume that everyone else is like them and reads 100 publications a day. Open sourcing it sounds great, but folks are saying that with zero knowledge of what the service actually looks like under the hood. I can only think they're assuming it looks like a common web service stack like LAMP or rails or something that would actually make sense to anyone if they got the code.