HP and OpenMPE agree on a new disclosure pact

June 2004

HP and OpenMPE agree on a new disclosure pact

OpenMPE couldn’t talk about much of its work with HP this spring, and the confidential disclosure agreement became a platform plank in this year’s campaigning for seats on the OpenMPE board. John Burke, one of the candidates who won a seat on the board, promised the 3000 community that he would at the least negotiate a better agreement for OpenMPE with HP, one that would give the group more ways to share news of its work with the community. This month the group has announced a new CDA with HP. Confidential disclosures appear to be a fact of life that OpenMPE must live with, if HP will continue to share its MPE process information with the group positioned to take over the operating system in 2007.

Even though OpenMPE hasn’t accomplished such a 2007 arrangement, it has a better disclosure agreement than it did at the start of 2004. Burke drafted a letter explaining the arrangement, one that the OpenMPE board approved in the weeks after this spring’s election. The letter to OpenMPE members admits that “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. Clearly, HP does not share the same sense of urgency to make decisions as many OpenMPE members. This, in the absence of good communication between the OpenMPE Board and the members of OpenMPE, fuels the notion that Hewlett-Packard is simply stringing OpenMPE along until it does not matter anymore.”

The letter goes on to suggest that needing a confidentiality agreement is a good sign that a vendor is negotiating seriously. “A well-crafted Confidentiality Agreement can actually improve communications,” the letter states. “It gives HP the confidence it can openly discuss strategic issues with the Board of OpenMPE and it provides a mechanism for the Board to communicate issues and results to its members.”

The OpenMPE board had agreed to a lengthy blackout period for discussing HP’s proposals with the membership: Until December 31, 2008, two full years after HP will leave the HP 3000 market. “The revised protection period is end-of-support, 12/31/2006,” the letter states. “While this is still longer than some of us believe is necessary, it represents a reasonable compromise. HP has also agreed to protect any designated OpenMPE confidential information.”

Negotiations between HP and OpenMPE will be breaking ground for the vendor, which has never released its source code for an operating system. While customers of HP 1000 systems got some access to source for RTE, the code remained in HP’s hands. OpenMPE needs much more than such restricted access, its directors say, if the group is to keep MPE stable and viable beyond 2006. OpenMPE’s message to its members, and others who are planning for a long homesteading period, is that it will do a better job of notifying the community of what’s happening. “We have had discussions about the need to keep the membership informed,” the board members said. “Agreeing to this CDA will not mean we are bringing down the cone of silence until 12/31/2006. 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 [OpenMPE] membership to hold the Board responsible for this.”

Next up for the OpenMPE board could be the responsibility to respond to HP’s deliberations about converting HP 9000s to HP 3000s. The vendor said it would update the community sometime this month. OpenMPE’s Web site collected polling data on the subject last fall, and some say the poll played a part in HP’s reconsideration of the 9000 conversions. HP had rejected the idea of making used 9000s a source for HP 3000 systems.

Some in the community who are considering homesteading with HP 3000s believe the majority of the action in the transition era remains to be seen. When a support services vendor noted that June 7, 2004 was exactly halftime in the period between HP’s Nov. 14, 2001 announcement and the Dec. 31, 2006 end of support, the vendor asked what the score was at halftime. OpenMPE Board Member Burke replied, “Uh, zero-zero? HP has gotten far fewer HP-UX migrations than it expected. Users have gotten far less of a commitment to ‘open’ MPE from HP than we hoped for.”