DivaBlog

Happy Accident
No great photog, I...uploading my pics from SunNetwork yesterday I found this happy accident:

This pictures was taken from the rooftop of a great restaurant called "M on the Bund". Note the Sun Logo spotlight trained on the tall black building on the right.

Better call a plumber

Last week at SunNetwork Conference, Shanghai, Jonathan Schwartz "leaked" our intention to open source Solaris.

This whole business of "leaking" information is fascinating to me. This story has actually been "leaked" at least 3 times that I know of already: First by Anil Gadre all the way back in January of 2000 in the Wall Street Journal (so long ago that I can't find a link for it), then again in 2002 in interviews with Rob Gingell and most recently last December by Jonathan Schwartz.

So, what's going on with all this leaking?

At companies I've worked for I've seen executives "leak" news when they wanted to test the waters, both inside and outside a company. You might ask why they don't just file a regular story? Well leaks are interesting. It feels like you're learning something you're not supposed to know. In my experience executive "leaks" are almost never unintentional, however.

In the old days at Apple (before Steve Jobs came back), MacWeek and similar magazines devoted whole columns to handling leaks put out with varying degrees of intention by product groups. In fact those columns were the best way for Apple employees to find out what was going on because internal communication was terrible. If your "rumor" got published the magazine sent you a coffee mug (which you could only use at home, although I remember one gutsy product manager who used his at work)! Reaction to well-placed rumors helped many an executive decide what to do. If the reaction was disasterous, it was only a leak after all.

So, I always remember that there are two audiences for every leak. The public and the private (company internal) audience reaction to a given piece of news may be very different. "Leaking" helps gauge reaction and helps close the gap when internal and public opinions don't match and helps move a decision along. This is a reality of doing business today in High Tech. Change is hard and almost nobody likes it. Getting used to the idea of a big change is sometimes best handled in small (leaky) increments.