English can be a very dangerous language to speak in if you happen to be a politician—or a major corporation. Earlier this month, Microsoft came out fulminating against computer programmers, DIYers, and others who wanted to modify and reuse the hardware and software of their newly released Kinect motion-capture system for the Xbox 360. The reaction seemed so harsh that at first it seemed almost surreal that the software giant would make such a powerful pronouncement.

Now they’re hand waving and withdrawing, according to Eurogamer,

Earlier this month, following news that one user had managed to hack into Kinect and get it running on a PC, Microsoft had issued a draconian pledge to “work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.”

Speaking to NPR last week, Microsoft’s director of incubation Alex Kipman and Microsoft Games Studios’ Shannon Loftis clarified what they defined as “hacking” and reined in threats to start throwing law suits around.

Hear that? It’s the sound of Microsoft backpedaling from a massive publicity snafu that they almost tripped and fell into over hacking the Kinect. Earlier I mentioned that English can be a dangerous language and part of that is because words have multiple meanings. The meaning that everyone else is using in the case of the Kinect controller happens to mean DIY, homebrew hacking where people use the device for purposes not immediately intended.

Microsoft, however, seemed to think that they were doing something altogether different (or at least that’s what they’re saying now.) Immediately after their austere announcement, the bounty on the drivers went up and the drivers got cracked and then shortly they became publicly available. Fueled in part by curiosity, part by indignation, and part by a $3k bounty posted by Adafruit.

“The first thing to talk about is Kinect was not actually hacked,” insisted Kipman. “Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit on the side of the Xbox and was able to actually use them, which hasn’t happened. Or it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened.”

Yes. Okay. Perhaps this is as close to an apology from Microsoft as we’ll get for jumping the gun and roaring to the presses without first researching what people were doing with this product. Fortunately for the rest of the world, the spokesman from Microsoft also went on to add that what people are doing is perfectly fine.

Spokesperson Kipman asserts that they Kinect system was always intended to be freely available—including the drivers—and that people making amazing toys out of it (such as the Kinect homebrew puppet show) are doing nothing wrong. Microsoft will not prosecute them in the same way that the pursue people who install mod chips in Xboxes.

Perhaps next time Microsoft will actually research what people are doing before unleashing the press release of war.

Also, with the corporation’s blessing and good tidings I hope that we’ll see a lot of interesting homebrew hacked innovations coming out of the Kinect!