Birket, you wrote :

> The execution of a confidentiality agreement between the
> Board of Directors of OpenMPE and Hewlett-Packard was an
> issue in the recent OpenMPE elections. We would like to
> inform the membership of the outcome of recent discussions
> between Hewlett-Packard and the OpenMPE Board of Directors as
> well as the outcome of recent discussions among the OpenMPE
> Board; discussions that have all occurred since the new Board
> was seated.

Thank you for communicating to the OpenMPE members the progress you are making about signing the NDA agreement. Now, would it be possible to communicate a bit more thoroughly with the membership about any progress being made with Source code transfer etc if there
has been any opportunity to discuss other, more pressing,  issues while all this NDA negotiating has been going on? It seems to me that once again the Board have been sidetracked successfully away from the real issues and if the membership is not going to hear the
"real" story until 2006, which is way too late for many people, then once again the words "river" and "sold down" loom large.

[snip]
> During the election, some members of OpenMPE expressed
> distrust of Hewlett-Packard's motives in its dealings with
> OpenMPE and also expressed dissatisfaction with the general
> lack of communication on the progress, or lack of progress,
> being made towards OpenMPE objectives. This is entirely
> understandable. The OpenMPE Board has not done a good job of
> communicating with its membership, in part because it did not
> know what could be said. Clearly, Hewlett-Packard does not
> share the same sense of urgency to make decisions as many
> OpenMPE members.

This is true. I would have thought that was obvious.
How could the Board possibly have thought that they could both sign an NDA and also let people know what was going on?

[snip]
> We have had discussions about the need to keep the membership
> informed. Agreeing to this CDA will not mean we are bringing
> down the cone of silence until 12/31/2006. We believe, and HP
> agrees, that we can craft regular messages that outline
> progress without violating either the letter or spirit of the
> confidentiality agreement. It is up to the membership to hold
> the Board responsible for this.

What is the point of "regular messages" if they cannot contain any important information? The membership needs to have the "meat" to be able to make "informed" decisions before it is too late. Why do you keep avoiding this issue?
If the messages had any decent content, why would you need the NDA at all?
Get rid of all this secrecy. lets hear what HP is really saying. Is there any hope that HP will accede control of the Source code or is it still all smokescreen?

> Therefore, the Board of Directors of OpenMPE has decided to
> enter into a confidentiality agreement with HP in order to
> facilitate communication and negotiation. It has also vowed
> to improve communication with the OpenMPE membership.

Okay. So when can we expect the first "regular message" with any decent content to let us know the state of play?

I would be very interested to hear what John Burke thinks about this as he joined the OpenMPE Board vowing not to sign any NDAs. Is  this just another cop-out?

Cheers,

John Dunlop

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