>>Craig,
>>
>>So I conclude that I was close to the mark as regards NDA and it's impact.
>>
>>Let me now discuss further the "NDA prohibits discussing things that happen in the private newsgroups and other forums"...
>>It would be a small step with huge implications for someone to puprosely mention something in such a (private) place simply to assure that it was never discussed in public by the participants. Then, opinion or not, a signer may well feel at risk of breaching the NDA.
>>
>>I should also say that I don't think that the vast majority of MVPs use the NDA to wiggle out of saying something. While no doubt some might, I feel that the motivation is far far more likely their desire to "do the right thing", which in this case would be to honour their NDA committment.
>>I assume you can see the simple problem here. If one is not permitted, due to NDA, to discuss anything mentioned in a private channel communication then ANYTHING mentioned in that private channel that is discussed by them in public breaches their NDA. This is perfectly fine and well and good for Microsoft, but it is less than helpful to either the MVP him/herself or to the community at large.
>>
>>Maybe you should suggest a change to the private channel communications practises - that anything subject to NDA be clearly marked as such in each and every message/thread to which it applies. That way it would be clearer to y'all what can safely be discussed in public and what cannot. Right now an MVP might have an opinion on a subject BUT if it has ever come up in NDA discussions that opinion is not discussable by him/her. That would change if it was clear as to just which subjects are NDA and which are not.
>>
>>Jim
>>
>
>It would be too difficult to police that. And, it's very clear what can be discussed publically. If Microsoft talks about it publically, then we can talk about it.

Yep, that's clear alright.

Since Microsoft doesn't talk publicly about bug reports, for instance, then a MVP can't.
Since Microsoft talks publicly about not making VFP a .NET player then a MVP can talk about how bad it would be for VFP to become a player in the .NET arena.
Since Microsoft talks about OLEDB and ODBC as THE ways to access data in the future then a MVP cannot discuss any need for a .NET language endowed with a data engine of its own. And for the same reason n-tier is the flavour-du-jour when it comes to architecture. And it goes on and on and on...

Jim