On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:16 PM, Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:
This seems to have upset at least one Apple engineer who dropped the NDA bomb on me; while he didn't confirm it was there, he did imply it, and it did make me have people give a second look. (I tried to get him to admit it but he's obviously been through Apple secret keeping training).
If work on DHCPv6 or other common tools are obscured by NDA, and thus information is not available to potential customers, and IT departments who must plan to support those customers, Apple is at fault, not Ray or anyone else. There is a lesson for Apple here. Secrets are cool and there is often a legitimate need to keep new features under wraps until you are actually ready to ship them (competition, delays, whatever.) Somehow, I don't think Steve Jobs is going to give a presentation on DHCPv6, and I doubt Apple's decision to ship it with their OS is going to cause Microsoft or other "competitors" to .. do anything differently. Obscuring some things behind NDA is good for business. IPv6 matters (specific to DHCPv6 or otherwise) are not among those things, and Apple ought to take notice of this very discussion and make their intentions and progress more public, so IT departments know what to expect. Secrecy is good for business, except when it's not. -- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts