Chuck writes:

> While I can see the need to limit the number of participants in the
>  conference call to a manageable number, what is with the PRIVATE
>  NON-ARCHIVED list server to discuss the conference calls? Is HP and the
>  board really that afraid of what will be said that it cannot risk it
>  being exposed to the general membership of this, supposedly, open
>  community?
>
>  This level of secrecy being applied to an obsoleted operating system has
>  passed excessive and reached the stage of comical.

While I certainly don't agree with everything that Chuck writes, I profoundly
agree with what he has written here.

The emulator is dead, and thus the future of MPE is dead, and two agencies
have killed it: HP and OpenMPE. Of the two, I blame OpenMPE the most.

While I realize that there are individual people in CSY who very much wanted
this process to succeed, HP has clearly indicated by its actions that it wants
MPE to go nowhere. However, that should not have been a surprise. That is the
default course of action. A corporation can never have the integrity or
character that of an individual -- and so long as a corporation is manned by people
such as Winston Prather, people who value their own careers far more than
their personal responsibilities, then a corporation is always going to act in the
most risk-averse, cover-your-ass manner possible.

But those same characteristics also make a corporation exceedingly vulnerable
to concerted public opinions. In general, it's rather easy to direct the
actions of a corporation, simply because the corporation fears negative publicity
so much more than anything else -- especially if you're the risk-averse, CYA
manager who might be tagged with causing what might turn out to be
well-reported, large-scale negative reactions.

The secrecy associated with OpenMPE from its very beginnings was the dumbest,
most self-defeating, most amateurish agreement ever made by any such advocacy
group. It killed any sense of enthusiasm or empowerment among the potential
user base -- and that was lethal enough by itself. Worse though, it put the
OpenMPE board into a conspiratorial relationship with HP, wholly under HP's
control. Whoever is a current member of the board and agreed to this condition of
deep secrecy should resign immediately. While I do not believe that the
situation is salvagable, the only remaining hope -- if there is any -- is to remake
the board from scratch and hold all future discussions in the open, immediately
available to everyone for comment, without any form of editing or censorship.

Wirt Atmar