Ken Nutsford said,

> OpenMPE should be renamed ClosedMPE to clearly position
> itself to the MPE
> community.

I understand fully Ken's sentiment, especially since I was saying much the
same thing before and during my campaign for a seat on the Board of
Directors of OpenMPE. I am disappointed it took us over two months to put
the CDA issue to bed and to craft a statement to the membership. But we
finally have done both and can now move forward. I call your attention to a
couple of sentences from the letter:

"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."

"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."

We've acknowledged we need to do a better job and are asking people like Ken
to hold us to it.

And, later, Alfredo Rego added,

> Are you also allowed to craft regular messages that outline
> LACK OF progress?
>
> ;-)

To which I emphatically answer, "Absolutely."

Note we said, "Clearly, Hewlett-Packard does not share the same sense of
urgency to make decisions as many OpenMPE members." Add to this certainly,
some OpenMPE Board members, including, especially, myself.

The jury is still out as to whether HP (the company, not necessarily the
individuals left in vCSY) is willing to work with OpenMPE or some other
group to create a situation where MPE can exist in some supportable manner
post 2006, or whether the corporate HP is just stringing us along. If the
latter is the case, there are ways we (I) can communicate that without
violating the letter or spirit of the confidentiality agreement.

Speaking for myself only, not for the Board of OpenMPE,

John Burke