OK.  I understand the logic and motivation behind the limitation of 10
votes for item #1 (Identify a way to run MPE in a supported fashion after
HP [such as OpenMPE]).  I have also read Ken Sletten's explanatory message
to this list posted on 3-8-2002 (2002 SIB: Why 20 votes total but only 10
on # 1).  There again, I understand and appreciate the thinking.

However, Interex is still the one putting the SIB together and doing the
packaging.  Somebody must have explained this to them or at least given
them a chance to review it to be sure we "voters" would understand it.  We
are all adults here, so why not explain the limitation/logic in the SIB
itself?  The explanation itself might/would have influenced the
consideration of vote allocation.

The concern you have expressed is that it would just end up as a big
referendum on continuing MPE after HP, leaving the lab engineers with
nothing to work on between now and October 2003 if the SIB vote was taken
literally by CSY.  (This assumes that management would just fold up the lab
immediately with the idea that nobody was interested in the specific
projects on the list  --  I doubt that.)  You said that "CSY clearly
recognizes that the majority of those voting want MPE to continue in some
form after 2006".  If that is the case, then this item is really political,
not technical, and does not even belong on the SIB at all since it is not a
lab project, but a management task.

Therefore, I now feel that I wasted 10 out of 20 votes on expressing a
sentiment (already understood by HP/CSY), that should have been covered
elsewhere in a simple survey.  I would have otherwise allocated those 10
votes to practical lab projects of interest to my company, had I been
properly informed.  This item should have been eliminated from the list
because it is not a technical project (unless the meaning of the item would
be to enhance the internal documentation of MPE to get it in shape for
release to outside parties, in which case it was poorly worded).

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