Hi, If you have read David's debrief of the last discussion with the investors, you've probably noticed an important question that was left open at the end of the meeting: transparency.
It is one of the most important principles of open source, and more generally with communities - this short article from opensource.com explains why very well: http://opensource.com/business/10/3/surprise-opposite-engagement This naturally extends to all parts of the project, including the board of Farsides - it has the capability to take decisions that can greatly influence the course of the project, so it's important to see how we can best apply this principle there too. It is far from being common practice in the business world, and certainly has its limits - it could give us some competitive disadvantages, for example during a negotiation with a company that doesn't follow the same principle (even if this is not as clear cut as it first appears to be, even on critical matters such as international diplomacy - cf Le Monde - "La fin du secret diplomatique" ). As far as I know, there isn't today a perfect example of a huge and well established open-source company that has achieved perfect transparency in every way. There are, however, examples that show how some open source companies try to deal with this: * Libre Entreprise (French) http://libre-entreprise.com/index.php/Accueil - They both go further and less far than us - they are democratically run by their employees and share their internal informations between them (all employees have access to the mailing-lists of the members of the network), but they don't allow third-parties to read it. This difference most likely come from the fact that they don't actually operate communities, they sell service to traditional companies. * BetterMeans https://secure.bettermeans.com/projects/20 - They are the closest from our open enterprise model, and freely share internal discussions, including business ones. This is a fairly recent company though, so they are still going though a lot of unanswered questions, just like we are. * RedHat https://www.theopensourceway.org/wiki/Stuff_everyone_knows_and_forgets_anyway#Take_extra_extra_extra_care_to_have_all_discussions_in_the_open - They don't disclose publicly the discussions with their investors, but have a transparent approach internally, for the same reasons as us. So companies have different ways to deal with this need for transparency, which they adapt every time to the realities of their market and product. The way Red Hat and the companies from Libre Entreprise solve it (by maintaining a distinction between employees and external community members in the level of access to information) is difficult to adapt to us - it created shifts and distance with the free software community at large. And the importance of the community in a videogame company is even more important than for most open source projects (which are building tools, and users don't have the same emotional bond with tools than players have with games). So at the end, it looks like we'll have to invent our own recipe. I doubt we can find the definitive answer right now - we just don't have enough practical data. So, to make sure we take care of this issue, and solve it progressively and in pragmatical terms, I'd like to propose a simple rule of thumb: by default, consider every subject and discussion as public, but allow ourselves to keep any subject private if there is a good reason. To keep us honest, we would tell that a specific subject is kept private, explain why, and not hold it private more time than is necessary. What do you think of this approach? Xavier.
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